e13578 Background: Cancer-related distress can adversely affect treatment adherence and quality of life, yet real-world evidence from Indian community oncology settings on this issue remains scarce. Methods: Adult Cancer patients were retrospectively assessed with NCCN Distress Thermometer between April 2025–December 2025. Distress was evaluated across physical, emotional, practical, social and spiritual domains at baseline and follow-up. Associations with age, disease stage and diagnosis were analyzed. Changes over time were assessed using Wilcoxon signed-rank test. Results: Among 2273 patients evaluated, the median age of the cohort was 58.3 years (SD 13.1) with M:F ratio of 1:1.4. Most patients had ECOG PS 0–1 (54.1%) and presented predominantly with stage IV disease (45.8%).The common cancers evaluated were breast (n = 570,25%), gastrointestinal (n = 360, 15.8%), gynaecologic (n = 297,13%) baseline distress was higher in patients < 60 years (p < 0.001). Overall 50.7% improved, 42.8% remained stable including pain 59.5%, fatigue 50.7% anxiety 69.2%, sadness 26.8%), and practical (n = 1780,78.3%; self-care 84.2%, finances 22.7%); while fewer reported were social (n = 625, 27.5%) or spiritual/religious (n = 365, 16.1%) concerns. Across breast, gastrointestinal, gynecologic, and head and neck cancers, physical (n = 1,258) and emotional (n = 1,199) concerns were the two most prevalent domains. Conclusions: Routine implementation of the NCCN Distress Thermometer in community oncology practice in Western India enabled systematic identification of multidimensional distress and was associated with significant, tumor-agnostic improvement in patient-reported distress, highlighting its clinical utility as a pragmatic supportive care screening tool in real-world Indian settings.
Devde et al. (Thu,) studied this question.
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