Streamlining the Journey of Research Into Clinical Practice: Making Your Patients and Practice Flourish Understanding and Setting Treatment Expectations for Patients With Metastatic Spine Tumors.

Study design: Literature review with clinical recommendation.

Objective: A concise curation of the latest spine literature exploring the relationship between expectations and satisfaction for patients with metastatic spinal disease (MSD). Deliver recommendations to practicing clinicians regarding interpretation and utilisation of this evidence.

Methods: The latest spine literature in the topic of factors affecting the expectations of patients with MSD was reviewed and clinical recommendations were formulated. Recommendations are graded as strong or Conditional.

Results: 5 articles were selected. Article 1: risk factors for the development of dissatisfaction from a cohort of 362 MSD patients. Strong recommendation to incorporate risk factor assessment when considering treatment. Article 2: systematic review assessing the relationship between pre-operative patient expectations and subsequent satisfaction in allied disciplines. Conditional recommendation to optimize patient expectation to positively modify patient satisfaction. Article 3: qualitative study of how clinicians, from different specialties, counsel patients with MSD pre-treatment. Strong recommendation to use a multidisciplinary approach. Article 4 qualitative study of how MSD patients experience their pre-treatment counselling and how that affected their appreciation of treatment success. Conditional recommendation to furnish patients with tailored, expected outcomes in the context of systemic progression. Article 5 Design and validation of a pre-treatment questionnaire specific to MSD. A conditional recommendation to incorporate this questionnaire in clinical and research MSD practice.

Conclusion: Patients with MSD are approaching end of life care and high levels of treatment satisfaction are crucial at this juncture. The role of expectation management and comprehensive counselling is critical.