Nurse navigators successfully implemented geriatric assessments and toxicity screening tools in hematology-oncology clinics for a broad range of cancer types, according to recently presented data.
John L. Shaia, MD, of Permanente Medical Group, San Francisco, CA, and colleagues presented an abstract detailing a pilot program and study investigating if nurse navigators could increase completion rates of the G8 geriatric assessment and the Cancer and Aging Research Group (CARG) toxicity tool for patients aged 65 years or older with a cancer diagnosis.
The G8 screening tool is designed to identify elderly patients with cancer who would benefit from a comprehensive geriatric assessment. The CARG toxicity tool helps predict chemotherapy-related toxicity in older patients with cancer.
According to the study abstract, “studies of these tools show completion rates of 20-35% when administered by a physician.”
In this project, nurse navigators were tasked with completion of the G8 and CARG tools for patients at seven community cancer centers from May 2021 to December 2021. Patients were 65 or older and had solid or malignant hematologic cancers.
In all, 1,372 patients were eligible for the G8 and 78.9% successfully completed the assessment. The total number of eligible patients for the CARG toxicity tool was 563 with 91.6% successfully completing the assessment.
The median age of patients completing the assessment was 74 years and 52% were female.
The cohort of patients eligible was 23% Asian/Pacific Islanders, 15% Black, 8% Hispanic White, and 51% non-Hispanic White. Diagnosed cancers included genitourinary cancer (!8%), breast cancer (17%), upper gastrointestinal cancer (15%), and thoracic cancer (13%).
Based on responses, these assessments resulted in referrals to services, including nutrition (193 referrals), audiology (30 referrals), physical therapy (18 referrals, psychiatry (5 referrals), and neurology (5 referrals).
Shaia JL, et al. Nurse navigator–initiated geriatric assessments in hematology/oncology clinics. J Clin Oncol. 40, 2022 (suppl 16; abstr 12051)
