To the Editor: In his Perspective article (June
25 issue),1 Ubel contends that the National Comprehensive
Cancer Network (NCCN) guidelines
fail to consider patient preferences and values.
Clinical practice guidelines are designed to assist
physicians and patients in decision making in
specific clinical circumstances and do not remove
the physician’s or patient’s autonomy in
decision making, nor do they eliminate the need
for shared decision making between patient and
physician. The NCCN guidelines were the first in
oncology to incorporate patient preference in decision
making. Patient advocates with full voice
and vote serve on many NCCN guidelines panels,
transparency procedures are in place, and the
NCCN has patient versions of selected guidelines.
The NCCN is developing evidence blocks to
provide patients and physicians with additional
information that will stimulate discussion on patient
preferences and values. These evidence
blocks provide information on options for therapy,
including efficacy, safety (toxicity), quality of
data, consistency of data, and affordability (cost).
The NCCN shares Ubel’s conviction that patient
preferences and values should be incorporated
into the application of clinical practice guidelines
and is actively evolving the NCCN guidelines
to better accomplish that goal