The postoperative symptom burden in patients with lung cancer is severe and adversely impairs their quality of life. Symptom management is the cornerstone of medical care. Patient-reported outcome (PRO)-based symptom management is being increasingly recognized as the best "patient-centered care" model in clinical practice. However, the precise implementation of this model in patients undergoing lung cancer surgery is hindered by the lack of a lung cancer surgery-specific scale, implementation standards, clinical application parameters and high-quality researches. The use of a precise and simple PRO scale and an electronic PRO platform may greatly improve the feasibility of implementing this model. Currently, the application of PRO-based symptom management in lung cancer surgery is still being explored and needs to be improved in clinical research and practice.
Objective To analyze the changes of perioperative symptoms of lung cancer patients by using patient-reported outcomes at different time points. MethodsA total of 109 patients who underwent thoracoscopic lung cancer resection in the department of thoracic surgery of our hospital from March to April 2021 were selected, including 55 (50.46%) males and 54 (49.54%) females. The mean age was 55.19±12.12 years. The postoperative symptom scale for lung cancer patients was used to investigate the changes of symptoms before surgery, 1 day after surgery, the day of discharge, and 30 days after surgery. Results The mean hospital stay was 6.89±2.25 days. None of the patients reported any clinical symptoms related to lung cancer before surgery. The most prominent symptoms 1 day after surgery were pain (3.33±0.96 points), nausea (2.81±1.18 points), dizziness (2.00±0.85 points), fatigue (1.89±0.79 points) and shortness of breath (1.79±1.37 points). The patients with dizziness, nausea, fatigue and other symptoms gradually decreased, and the symptoms were relieved significantly (P<0.05). However, the symptoms of conscious pain, cough and shortness of breath lasted for a long time. At 30 days after surgery, 70.64%, 64.22% and 33.03% of patients felt pain, cough and shortness of breath, respectively, and the degree of cough was aggravated (P<0.001). Conclusion Pain, cough, dizziness, shortness of breath and fatigue are the core postoperative symptoms of lung cancer patients. Most postoperative adverse symptoms can be effectively controlled in a short period of time, but pain, cough and shortness of breath still present persistent characteristics, which deserve further study.