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METHODS article
Front. Pediatr.
Sec. Pediatric Oncology
Volume 13 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fped.2025.1534153
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Introduction: Bone sarcoma patients face intensive treatment, including life-changing local therapy, which impacts both short-and long-term functioning. Moreover, bone sarcoma survivors experience the highest burden of adverse events of all childhood cancer survivors. To address these issues, we set up a structured multidisciplinary outpatient follow-up clinic for patients who completed treatment and integrated this clinic into the standard of care. This study protocol describes the methodology of a cross-sectional study that aims to systematically report the functional outcomes, adverse events, psychosocial outcomes and health-related quality of life of the cohort seen at this clinic. Methods and analysis: Participants are recruited at the multidisciplinary follow-up clinic and their consent is obtained. Standard of care clinical assessments serve as the primary data source for this study. Furthermore, additional research assessments are performed to further expand our knowledge.Assessments are structured by standardized assessment sets that we developed based on literature review and joint national expertise in bone sarcoma care. The sets comply with international guidelines such as the World Health Organization's International Classification of Functioning, disability and health, and include a combination of patient-reported, clinician-reported and performance-based outcome measures for comprehensive representation of outcomes.Discussion: This study will generate valuable knowledge on the functional outcomes, adverse events, psychosocial outcomes and quality of life of a national cohort of pediatric bone sarcoma patients in follow-up care. By aligning additional research assessments with standardized patient care, a comprehensive range of outcomes will be obtained while minimizing the patient's burden. Moreover, this protocol may serve as a template for clinics and research internationally, allowing for the merging of standardized outcome data in such rare disease. This will facilitate the optimization of current patient care and inform the important shared decision-making process for local treatment in future patients.
Keywords: adverse events, Bone Sarcoma, functional outcome, orthopedic surgery, pediatric oncology, study protocol, Quality of Life
Received: 25 Nov 2024; Accepted: 20 Mar 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Tigelaar, Haveman, Bekkering, Oude Lansink, Rohrich, Van der Hoek, Beek, Van Dijk, Langemeijer, Slooff-Lentink, Van der Aa-Van Delden, Maurice-Stam, Peek, Van der Pal, Koopman, Kremer, Westerbos, Van Tinteren, Bramer, Van de Sande, Grootenhuis, Schreuder and Merks. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence:
Leonie G Tigelaar, Princess Maxima Center for Pediatric Oncology, Utrecht, Netherlands
Johannes HM Merks, Princess Maxima Center for Pediatric Oncology, Utrecht, Netherlands
Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.
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