Trafford Crump, Mehrnoush Dehghani, Jason M Sutherland, Carmen Mueller, Lorenzo Edwin Ferri
{"title":"Calculating the minimally important difference for the FACT-E from esophageal cancer surgery to recovery using distribution-based methods.","authors":"Trafford Crump, Mehrnoush Dehghani, Jason M Sutherland, Carmen Mueller, Lorenzo Edwin Ferri","doi":"10.1093/dote/doaf042","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>A challenge with patient-reported outcomes is interpreting changes in scores. The minimally important difference (MID) represents the smallest meaningful change in a score. This study's objective is to calculate the MID for the Functional Assessment of Cancer Therapy-Esophageal (FACT-E) and examine whether the MID changes over time from treatment through recovery. This retrospective longitudinal study analyzed data from the McGill University Esophageal and Gastric Data- and Bio-Bank. Participants were adults who underwent esophageal cancer surgery and completed the FACT-E pre-surgery and at least once post-surgery. MIDs were calculated using two distribution-based approaches: standard deviation and standard error of measurement. MIDs were calculated for the five FACT-E domains and total score at multiple time points. The study included 676 participants. MIDs varied by domain and calculation method. The MIDs ranged from 1 to 3 points for most domains, 2 to 5 points for the esophagus cancer subscale, and 4 to 9 points for the FACT-E total score. The MIDs changed over time, with the greatest fluctuations found in the esophagus cancer subscale. This study provides the first estimates of MIDs for the FACT-E, offering clinicians and researchers guidance for interpreting meaningful changes in scores. The range of MIDs can help identify potentially important changes in patient-reported symptoms and quality of life over time. Further studies using additional methods to calculate MIDs are warranted to refine these estimates.</p>","PeriodicalId":54277,"journal":{"name":"Diseases of the Esophagus","volume":"38 3","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.6000,"publicationDate":"2025-05-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC12128922/pdf/","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Diseases of the Esophagus","FirstCategoryId":"3","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1093/dote/doaf042","RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"","JCRName":"","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
A challenge with patient-reported outcomes is interpreting changes in scores. The minimally important difference (MID) represents the smallest meaningful change in a score. This study's objective is to calculate the MID for the Functional Assessment of Cancer Therapy-Esophageal (FACT-E) and examine whether the MID changes over time from treatment through recovery. This retrospective longitudinal study analyzed data from the McGill University Esophageal and Gastric Data- and Bio-Bank. Participants were adults who underwent esophageal cancer surgery and completed the FACT-E pre-surgery and at least once post-surgery. MIDs were calculated using two distribution-based approaches: standard deviation and standard error of measurement. MIDs were calculated for the five FACT-E domains and total score at multiple time points. The study included 676 participants. MIDs varied by domain and calculation method. The MIDs ranged from 1 to 3 points for most domains, 2 to 5 points for the esophagus cancer subscale, and 4 to 9 points for the FACT-E total score. The MIDs changed over time, with the greatest fluctuations found in the esophagus cancer subscale. This study provides the first estimates of MIDs for the FACT-E, offering clinicians and researchers guidance for interpreting meaningful changes in scores. The range of MIDs can help identify potentially important changes in patient-reported symptoms and quality of life over time. Further studies using additional methods to calculate MIDs are warranted to refine these estimates.