Table 2.

Prevalence and Severity of Numbness/Tingling and Neuropathic Pain in Patients with Colorectal Cancer Relative to Other Cancer Types (Breast, Lung or Prostate)

Variable (based on patient or clinician report)	Colorec		Others
	No. of patients	%	No. of patients	%	P-value
Numbness/tingling at initial assessment - patient					<0.001
<5	526	74.2	1966	82.9
≥5	183	25.8	405	17.1
Numbness/tingling is the most severe symptom at initial assessment - patient a					<0.001
No	512	72.2	1963	82.8
Yes	197	27.8	408	17.2
Numbness/tingling is one of the top 3 symptoms at initial assessment - patient b					<0.001
No	317	44.7	1413	59.6
Yes	392	55.3	958	40.4
Numbness/tingling at follow-up – patient					<0.001
<5	495	74.4	1744	82.3
≥5	170	25.6	376	17.7
Numbness/tingling is one of top 3 symptoms at initial assessment-clinician					<0.001
No	538	74.9	2137	89.5
Yes	180	25.1	251	10.5
Pain is one of the top 3 symptoms at initial assessmen -clinician					<0.001
No	507	70.6	1512	63.3
Yes	211	29.4	876	36.7
Neuropathic pain at initial assessment – clinician					0.654
No	544	91.3	1651	90.7
Yes	52	8.7	170	9.3

^aPatients reported the severity of 19 symptoms using the MDASI (numbness/tingling, pain, fatigue, nausea, disturbed sleep, distress, shortness of breath, problem with remembering, lack of appetite, drowsy, dry mouth, sad, vomiting, diarrhea, constipation, sore mouth, skin rash, hair loss and coughing). There were many ties in the symptom scores (range: 0–10) reported by patients. As long as the numbness/tingling score was no smaller than the score for any other symptom, numbness/tingling was considered as the most severe symptom for the patient.

^bPatient-reported numbness/tingling was considered as one of the top 3 symptoms if the difference between the score for the most severe symptom and that for numbness/tingling was ≤ 2 points regardless of the existence of ties among symptoms.