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Despite the motivation of oncology patients to take part in clinical trials, only a minority of them are enrolled in clinical trials. Implementation of new practical procedures can become a barrier that withholds patients from participating in clinical trials. Treating physicians are crucial in augmenting trial accrual. The drivers that promote physicians to allocate patients for clinical trials need further assessment. We conducted two separate cross-sectional surveys, addressing patients with a haematological disease in one survey and haematologists in another survey. The patient survey was filled out by 420 patients. Significant relationships between the willingness to participate in a trial and trial knowledge (p < 0.001) and between doctor–patient relationship and participation willingness (p = 0.007) were noted. Patients above 60 years were less willing to use an electronic consent procedure vs. patients younger than 60 (p < 0.001). The physician questionnaire was completed by 42 participants of whom most (83%) were active in and (94%) motivated for clinical trials. Apart from the patient benefit and scientific interest, prestige was an equal motivator closely followed by financial remunerations. First goal was not to harm the patient. Our study confirms the high willingness of patients for trial participation and the need to rethink the structure of trial organisation. The e-consent procedure is not the method preferred by most patients above 60 years old. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Simple Summary: Myelodysplastic syndromes are a heterogenous group of bone-marrow cancers that prelude a possible evolution to acute myeloid leukemia. Most treatments aim at reinstalling bone marrow function and delay evolution to acute leukemia. The disease has a negative impact on health-related quality of life and amelioration is an independent treatment goal. In order to capture the impact of current treatments outside clinical trials we aimed to monitor quality of life during the course of treatment. Another key element in our study was to prospectively assess disease perception and the impact on quality of life. Not reaching our inclusion goal, we cannot make any conclusions or assumptions on our first objective. We can, however, demonstrate a clear significant relation between disease perception and health related quality of life in this patient population that may lead to a positive impact for future patients. Patients with myelodysplastic syndromes suffer from an impaired quality of life that is only partially explained by physical symptoms. In an observational study, we aimed to investigate the impact of current MDS treatments and the influence of disease perception on quality of life. Serial measurement of health-related quality of life was performed by 'the QUALMS', a validated MDS-specific patient reported outcome tool. Disease perception was evaluated by means of the Brief Illness Perception Questionnaire (B-IPQ). We prospectively collected data on 75 patients that started on a new treatment and could not demonstrate a significant change in QUALMS score or B-IPQ score during treatment. Six out of eight items evaluated in the B-IPQ correlated significantly with QUALMS score. In this small sample, no significant difference in QUALMS score was found between lower vs. higher risk MDS patients or other studied variables, e.g., targeted hemoglobin showed no correlation with QUALMS score. In daily practice attention must be paid to initial formation of disease perception as it correlates independently with health-related quality of life and does not change during treatment (clinicaltrials.gov identifier: NCT04053933). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: The outcome of patients with simultaneous diagnosis of haematological malignancies (HM) and COVID-19 is unknown and there are no specific treatment guidelines. Methods: We describe the clinical features and outcome of a cohort of 450 patients with simultaneous diagnosis of HM and COVID-19 registered in the EPICOVIDEHA registry between March 2020 to February 2022. Results: Acute leukaemia and lymphoma were the most frequent HM (35.8% and 35.1%, respectively). Overall, 343 (76.2%) patients received treatment for HM, which was delayed for longer than one month since diagnosis in 57 (16.6%). An overall response rate was observed in 140 (40.8%) patients after the first line of treatment. After a median follow-up of 35 days, overall mortality was 177/450 (39.3%); 30-day mortality was significantly higher in patients not receiving HM treatment (42.1%) than in those receiving treatment (27.4%, p = 0.004), either before and/or after COVID-19, or compared to patients receiving HM treatment at least after COVID-19 (15.2%, p < 0.001). Age, severe/critical COVID-19, ≥2 comorbidities, and lack of HM treatment were independent risk factors for mortality, whereas a lymphocyte count >500/mcl at COVID-19 onset was protective. Conclusions: HM treatment should be delivered as soon as possible for patients with simultaneous diagnosis of COVID-19 and HM requiring immediate therapy.