Women & Infants doctor awarded $2.7M for study

PROVIDENCE – More than $2.7 million has been awarded to Dr. Katina Robison, a gynecologic oncologist with the Women’s Oncology Program at Women & Infants Hospital of Rhode Island for the study “Cancer of the Uterus and Treatment of Stress Incontinence.”
The funding was awarded by the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute Board of Governors.
The study, which also will include a recruitment site at the University of Alabama, is focused on improving the quality of life for women who undergo surgery for endometrial cancer by screening for and offering treatment of existing stress urinary incontinence at the same time as their cancer surgery.
This step should also decrease costs for patients and the health care system by combining two surgeries into one, according to information from Women & Infants, a Care New England hospital.
“We believe that concurrent treatment of endometrial cancer and stress urinary incontinence may improve quality of life, as well as emotional and physical health for women,” Robison said in a statement.
Stress urinary incontinence often exists among women with endometrial cancer, which is the fourth most common cancer among American women.
While the condition is common, about 40 percent of women with it have not discussed their symptoms with a health care provider, and only 25 percent have sought care. This, Robinson says, is unfortunate because SUI can severely decrease a woman’s quality of life, sexual function and is often a considerable financial burden.

“It’s something of a domino effect. A woman with stress urinary incontinence experiences leakage when she laughs, coughs or sneezes. Because of her embarrassment over this, it can easily affect her sexual activity, which then can increase any chance of depression and reduce her overall quality of life,” she notes.

She and the research team believe that asking basic questions about incontinence before any cancer surgery and then offering treatment of SUI at the time of cancer surgery can help.

“We want to see if treating SUI at the same time as we remove the endometrial cancer will improve a woman’s quality of life in survivorship,” Robison says. “We know that quality of life improves for women after treatment for pelvic floor symptoms causing SUI. We now want to promote screening of SUI among women with endometrial cancer and see if that improves their quality of life after surgery.”

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The study will measure the quality of life reported by women who have both surgeries at the same time, compared with those who do not.

Robison’s proposal was one of 46 that PCORI approved for funding.
Said PCORI Executive Director Dr. Joe Selby, “We look forward to following the study’s progress and working with Women & Infants to share the results.”

The study will begin enrolling participants in 2016 and will be promoted on www.womenandinfants.org/womenscancer. For information about the Program in Women’s Oncology, call (401) 453-7520.

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