Psychosocial controversies in breast cancer

Breast Cancer Research

Table 1 Audience responses to questions before the talks and after the discussion period

Before/after discussion	Yes	No	Unsure
Is patient representation on trial steering committees helpful?
Before	53	16	32
After	44	38	18
Should patients be involved in clinical trial design?
Before	38	39	23
After	32	56	11
Do patient advocacy groups help speed up introduction of new drugs in the clinic?
Before	63	24	13
After	90	8	2
Are patient advocacy groups responsible for distorting cancer budget in favour of breast over other tumours?
Before	79	11	10
After	66	30	5
Should formal QoL play a major role in the management of MBC patients?
Before	73	14	14
After	90	8	2
Are patient self-reports in QoL questionnaires more accurate than clinicians' records of side effects?
Before	50	25	25
After	80	8	13
When making decisions about local surgical therapy women prefer ...^a
Before	10 (Dr to choose)	83 (joint decision)	7 (patient choice)
After	5 (Dr to choose)	81 (joint decision)	14 (patient choice)
Should breast cancer patients be encouraged to try complementary therapy?
Before	23	48	29
After	31	38	31
Do nonprescription drugs help the symptoms and side effects?
Before	39	20	41
After	38	23	39

^aFor this question, the options were 'Dr to choose', 'joint decision' and 'patient choice'. MBC, metastatic breast cancer; QoL, quality of life.

ISSN: 1465-542X