Overview
The Functional Assessment of Cancer Therapy–Kidney Symptom Index—Disease-Related Symptoms (FKSI-DRS) is a subset of items derived from the FKSI-15 developed to assess patients’ kidney-cancer-related symptoms. Using patient and expert provider input, the previously developed 15-item index of the most important symptoms and concerns of people being treated for advanced kidney cancer were a mixture of disease-related symptoms and treatment-related side effects. As a result, it may be difficult to assign an informative label to the score defined as the summation of these 15 most important concerns. Because one of the primary goals of treating advanced kidney cancer is the relief of disease-related symptoms, this measure contains nine items predominantly attributable to kidney cancer itself rather than its treatment. It is a reliable, valid, and responsive brief index of the most important symptoms associated with advanced kidney cancer.
MEASURE NAME:
Functional Assessment of Cancer Therapy Kidney Cancer Symptom Index - Disease Related Symptoms (FKSI-DRS)
VERSION:
4
NUMBER OF ITEMS:
9
PATIENT POPULATION:
Kidney cancer patients 18 years and older
RECALL PERIOD:
Past 7 days
RESPONSE SCALE:
5 point Likert-type scale
DATA COLLECTION:
Paper and electronic
ADMINISTRATION:
Self-administration and interview when applicable
SUBSCALE DOMAINS:
Kidney cancer symptom index
TIME FOR COMPLETION:
Less than 5 minutes
SCORING:
Manual scoring template, some items are reverse scored. Total scores available.
RELATED MEASURES:
Language Availability
Available translations of the FKSI-DRS can be obtained by registering for permission. Users are not permitted to translate the FKSI-DRS without permission from FACIT.org. Permission from FACIT.org to translate the FKSI-DRS may also be contingent upon timeline expectations and availability of FACIT staff. Translations must undergo a rigorous methodology under the guidance of FACIT.org which includes multiple translators, QA steps and cognitive interviews with patients. For commercial use, FACITtrans is the approved translation vendor to translate the FACIT measurement system.
Please contact us for more information.
Licensing
Licensing fees are assessed on a per trial/per measure basis for commercial use. There is no fee for use of the English version, but a license should be obtained.
Non-commercial use is assessed on a case-by-case basis. Licensing fees are typically not applied to investigator-initiated research, students, or clinical use.
To license an available version of this measure for commercial or non-commercial use, please complete our registration form. All of the information provided in the form will be kept strictly confidential. For questions, please contact us.
Selected References
Bukowski, R., Cella, D., Gondek, K., Escudier, B. Effects of sorafenib on symptoms and quality of life results from a large randomized placebo-controlled study in renal cancer. American Journal of Clinical Oncology; 2007: 30(3): 220-227. doi: 10.1097/01.coc.0000258732.80710.05.
Butt, Z., Peipert, D., Webster, K., Chen, C., & Cella, D. General population norms for the functional assessment of cancer therapy – kidney symptom index (FKSI). Cancer 2013; 119(2): 429-437. doi: 10.1002/cncr.27688.
Cella, D., Paul, D., Yount, S., Winn, R., Chang, C-H, Banik, D., & Weeks, J. What are the most important symptom targets when treating advanced cancer? A survey of providers in the National Comprehensive Cancer Network (NCCN). Cancer Investigation 2003; 21(4): 526-535. doi: 10.108/CNV-120022366.
Cella, D., Yount, S., Brucker, P., Du, H., Bukowski, R., Vogelzang, N., Bro, W. Development and validation of a scale to measure disease-related symptoms of kidney cancer. Value in Health 2007; 10(4): 285-293. doi: 10.1111/j.1524-4733.2007.00183.x.
Cella, D., Rosenbloom, S., Beaumont, J., Yount, J., Paul, D., Hampton, D., Abernethy, A., Jacobsen, P., Syrjala, K., & Von Roenn, J. Development and validation of 11 symptom indexes to evaluate response to chemotherapy for advanced cancer. Journal of the National Comprehensive Cancer Network; 2011; 9(3): 268-278. doi: 10.6004/jnccn.2011.0026.
Cella, D., Escudier, B., Rini, B., Chen, C., Bhattacharyya, H., Tarzai, J., Rosbrook, B., Kim, S., & Motzer, R. Patient-reported outcomes for axitinib v sorafenib in metastatic renal cell carcinoma: phase III (AXIS) trial. British Journal of Cancer 2013; 108(8): 1571–1578. doi: 10.1038/bjc.2013.
Choueiri TK, Powles T, Peltola K, et al. Belzutifan versus Everolimus for Advanced Renal-Cell Carcinoma. N Engl J Med. 2024 Aug 22;391(8):710-721. doi: 10.1056/NEJMoa2313906.
Luo, X., Cappelleri, J., Cella, D., Li, J., Charbonneau, C., Kim, S., Chen, I., & Motzer, R. Using the Rasch model to validate and enhance the interpretation of the functional assessment of cancer therapy-kidney symptom index-disease related symptoms scale. Value in Health 2009; 12(4): 580-586. doi: 10.1111/j.1524-4733.2008.00473.x.
Motzer, R. , Hutson, T., Olsen, M., Hudes, G., Burke, J., Edenfield, W., Wilding, Agarwal, N., Thompson, J., Cella, D., Bello, A., Korytowksy, B., Yuan, J., Valota, O., Martell, B., Hariharan, S., & Figlin, R. Randomized phase II trial of sunitinib on an intermittent versus continuous dosing schedule as first-line therapy for advanced renal cell carcinoma. Journal of Clinical Oncology 2012; 30(12): 1371-1377. doi: 10.1200/JCO.2011.36.4133.
Rini, B., Wilding, G., Hudes, G., Stadler, W., Kim, S., Tarazi, J., Rosbrook, B., Trask, P., Wood, L., & Dutcher, J. Phase II Study of Axitinib in Sorafenib-Refractory Metastatic Renal Cell Carcinoma. Journal of Clinical Oncology 2009; 27(27): 4462-4468. doi: 10.1200/JCO.2008.21.7034.
Bonomi, A.E., Cella, D.D., Hahn, E.A., Bjordal, K., Sperner, B., Gangeri, L., Bergman, B., Willems, J., Hanquet, P., & Zittoun, R. Multilingual translation of the Functional Assessment of Cancer Therapy (FACT) quality of life measurement system. Quality of Life Research 1996; 5: 309-320.
Eremenco, S., Arnold, B., Cella, D. A comprehensive method for the translation and cross-cultural validation of health status questionnaires. Evaluation & the Health Professions 2005; 28(2): 212-232.
Webster K., Cella D., Yost K. The Functional Assessment of Chronic Illness Therapy (FACIT) measurement system: Properties applications, and interpretation. Health and Quality of Life Outcomes 2003; 1(1): 79-85.
Yost K.J., Eton D.T. Combining distribution- and anchor-based approaches to determine minimally important differences: The FACIT experience. Evaluation & the Health Professions 2005; 28(2): 172-191.
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