Supportive therapy in oncology

It is extremely important to deliver treatments, both in medical oncology a nd in radiation oncology, in compliance with the due dose intensity, in ord er to achieve the best results in terms of clinical response end local cont rol and, often, also in terms of survival. Supportive care is one of the to ols for the achievement of this goal, permitting the delivery of aggressive therapies and the improvement of Quality of Life. It is the aim of the Tsonc study to evaluate what the main therapeutic tren d is, on the ground of a survey performed in 105 medical oncology, radiatio n oncology, and haematology centres. For this assessment the WHO/INH and RT OG common toxicity criteria were adopted, even knowing that these score sys tems had been developed for reporting acute/subacute toxicity and not to ch oose the therapeutic approach. However, these scales give us the possibilit y to refer to highly validated systems and provide participants with a,comm on language. Thirty-two items of toxicity were listed, and each item included 2 to 4 deg rees of severity so to report supportive care accordingly. The present pape r reports the criteria of choice of the scales and symptoms and the schedul e of the queries.