Weighing up the benefits and harms of a new anti- XXXX drug - a survey of Australian oncologists.

@entity1 @entity3136 @entity937 @entity55 @entity5 @entity2239
BACKGROUND: Little is known about the relative importance that oncologists attribute to the benefits and harms of anti- @entity5 drugs when considering treatment options with their @entity1 . AIM: To quantify the trade-offs made between overall survival, progression free survival and adverse effects. METHODS: A web-based survey elicited importance weights for the benefits and harms of bevacizumab or @entity2239 . Combining the importance weights with trial-based probabilities produced a score and ranking for each treatment option. RESULTS: A total of 40 responses were received for the bevacizumab scenario and 32 for the @entity2239 scenario. All respondents regarded overall survival and progression free survival as the most important attributes - more important than avoiding the potential harms regardless of drugs. Amongst the potential harms, respondents allocated the highest mean importance weight to @entity937 and rated absolute improvement in overall survival as 1.6 times and 2.3 times as important as avoiding @entity937 in the two versions of the bevacizumab scenario respectively. For the @entity2239 scenario, @entity3136 and @entity55 were allocated the highest mean importance weights with absolute improvement in overall survival rated as 2.2 times as important as avoiding @entity3136 / @entity55 . All 40 respondents (100%) favoured treatment option with bevacizumab to no bevacizumab based on respondent's determined weights for treatment attributes. The converse was found for @entity2239 with 22 (69%) of respondents preferring the 'no @entity2239 ' option. CONCLUSION: Oncologists preferences over the benefits and harms of treatment do, when combined with evidence of effect, influence treatment decisions for anti- @entity5 drugs.
