Patients’ decision-making experiences and preferences regarding pixantrone treatment in relapsed or refractory diffuse large B-cell lymphoma: study protocol for a longitudinal mixed methods study

摘要

IntroductionThere is a lot of speculation about why and how patients decide to use invasive treatment in an advanced stage of cancer, but the body of research is limited. The present longitudinal qualitative and quantitative study reflects real-life practice of pixantrone use and aims to collect data on patients’ considerations for, expectations of and experiences with pixantrone and trajectories in their quality-of-life (QoL) values in a Dutch clinical setting. Hence, two questions emerge. Why do patients choose for this treatment, while the treatment success rate is limited and curation cannot be achieved? And second, once chosen, what conditions would patients like to satisfy and how do they experience the treatment?