Core Patient-Centered Outcomes for Adolescents and Young Adults with Cancer: A Comprehensive Review of the Literature from the STRONG-AYA Project

Background: In adolescents and young adults (AYAs) with cancer, the importance of patient-centered research outcomes is increasingly acknowledged and there is a need for consensus on the most relevant outcomes. This review provides a comprehensive overview of outcomes relevant to AYAs with cancer in order to develop an AYA-specific core outcome set (COS) as part of the European project STRONG-AYA. Methods: A literature search was conducted to identify relevant articles in five databases. Each article was reviewed by two independent researchers, using Rayyan (an online tool) to screen articles by their title/abstract and then by their full text. Subsequently, the data were extracted using a predefined, tailored extraction framework. Results: In total, 17,301 articles were screened, of which 1631 were included in the analyses. Registry studies (52.9%) were the most used study type. Well-represented continents were North America (50.3%) and Europe (27.8%). Of the five core areas, functioning (47.0%) and epidemiology (44.9%) were covered most often, followed by physiological/clinical (42.4%), resource use (6.1%), and adverse events (4.5%). The outcome domains that were represented the most include mortality/survival (43.1%), delivery of care (23.4%), outcomes relating to neoplasms (22.7%), and emotional functioning/well-being (19.2%). Conclusions: This literature review provides a foundation for the development of an AYA-specific COS for improving the relevance and efficiency of measuring outcomes, the pooling of (international) research data, and the value of care for current and future AYAs with cancer. Finalization and refinement of the COS should be a priority for future research.