1. Measuring the Severity of Topical 5-Fluorouracil Toxicity
- Author
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Kaveri, Korgavkar, Elnaz F, Firoz, Michael, Xiong, Robert, Lew, Kimberly, Marcolivio, Nancy, Burnside, Robert, Dyer, Martin A, Weinstock, and Thomas, Rector
- Subjects
Adult ,Male ,Antimetabolites, Antineoplastic ,medicine.medical_specialty ,Skin Neoplasms ,Erythema ,Intraclass correlation ,Dermatology ,Severity of Illness Index ,law.invention ,Randomized controlled trial ,law ,Severity of illness ,Humans ,Medicine ,5-FLUOROURACIL TOXICITY ,Veterans Affairs ,Observer Variation ,business.industry ,Reproducibility of Results ,Middle Aged ,Carcinoma, Basal Cell ,Toxicity ,Carcinoma, Squamous Cell ,Female ,Surgery ,Drug Eruptions ,Fluorouracil ,medicine.symptom ,business ,Observer variation ,Facial Dermatoses - Abstract
Background: Topical 5% 5-fluorouracil (5-FU) is known to cause toxicity, such as erythema, pain, and crusting/erosions. Objectives: We sought to develop a scale to measure this toxicity and test the scale for reliability. Methods: A scale was developed involving four parameters: erythema severity, percentage of face involved in erythema, crusting/erosions severity, and percentage of face involved in crusting/erosions. Thirteen raters graded 99 sets of photographs from the Veterans Affairs Keratinocyte Carcinoma Chemoprevention (VAKCC) Trial using these parameters. Results: Intraclass correlation overall for 13 raters was 0.82 (95% CI 0.77–0.86). There was no statistically significant trend in reliability by level of training in dermatology. Conclusions: This scale is a reliable method of evaluating the severity of toxicity from topical 5-fluorouracil and can be used by dermatologists and nondermatologists alike.
- Published
- 2014
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