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Vienna, Austria

ESTRO 2023

Session Item

Health economics / health services research
Poster (Digital)
Interdisciplinary
Impact of nationality on the quality of early side effects following radiotherapy in Germany
Muemtaz Koeksal, Germany
PO-1088

Abstract

Impact of nationality on the quality of early side effects following radiotherapy in Germany
Authors:

Muemtaz Koeksal1, Romy Streppel1, Christopher Schmeel2, Alexander Mustea3, Stefan Hauser4, Manuel Ritter4, Alina Abramian5, Andree Faridi6, Maria Gonzalez-Carmona7, Peter Brossart7, Niklas Schäfer8, Ulrich Herrlinger8, Mohammed Banat9, Erdem Güresir9, Hartmut Vatter9, Ulrike Höller10, Frank Giordano11

1University Medical Center, Radiation oncology, Bonn, Germany; 2University Medical Center, Radiatoin Oncology, Bonn, Germany; 3University Medical Center, Gynaecology and Gynaecological Oncology, Bonn, Germany; 4University Medical Center, Urology, Bonn, Germany; 5University Medical Center, Senology and Breast Center, Bonn, Germany; 6University Medical Center, Senology and Breast Cancer, Bonn, Germany; 7University Medical Center, Internal Medicine, Bonn, Germany; 8University Medical Center, Neuro-Oncology, Bonn, Germany; 9University Medical Center, Neurosurgery, Bonn, Germany; 10German Society for Radiation Oncology , DEGRO, Berlin, Germany; 11University Medical Center, Radiation oncology , Bonn, Germany

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Purpose or Objective

The concept of personalized medicine (PM) aims at unique and tailored prevention, diagnosis, and treatment for individual groups of people. To accomplish this, factors predicting and diagnosing certain unfavorable side effects must be revealed and adopt into clinical medicine. Literature suggests an association between health and various sociodemographic parameters, such as nationality. To our knowledge, no investigation has examined the association between nationality and early side effects (SEs) of radiotherapy in Germany.

Material and Methods

Initially, 9,187 patients treated at our university between 2017 and 2021 were considered for investigation. A matched-pair analysis was conducted by matching 178 German patients to 178 non-German (hereinafter described as “foreign”) patients based on diagnostic and demographic criteria. For all 356 patients, well-documented data on SE from follow-up care after radiotherapy were collected.

Results

Our finding showed a difference in the quality, but not the quantity, of SE such that foreign patients display more severe early SEs compared to German patients. Furthermore, tumor entity, concurrent therapy, and body mass index were associated with SE severity.

Conclusion

In summary, our finding showed that foreign patients receiving radiotherapy were at high risk for more severe early SE, suggesting a great need to develop and implement targeted preventive measures for foreigners with cancer. Given the ongoing progress of PM, further research investigating predictive factors for SE is needed for better customization and individualization of interventions.