Chemotherapy-Induced peripheral neurotoxicity (CIPN): When epidemiological issues come before the cure

Chemotherapy-Induced Peripheral Neurotoxicity (CIPN) is a frequent and longlasting (even permanent) adverse effect of commonly applied drugs in Oncology. In particular, CIPN is due to treatment of the “big killers”: breast, colorectal and lung cancer. Nowadays cancer patients have become a long surviving population thanks to advances in cancer treatment. Quality of Life has become a priority and CIPN can be detrimental in this regard, causing mainly sensory disturbances at limb extremities; it can cause both neuropathic pain both loss of sensation that severe to determine sensory ataxia. But, at the present moment there is not a preventive nor a curative treatment. One of the main reasons for this lack is related to the fact that there are no definite epidemiological data on this condition, being absent a gold standard in its assessment. As a consequence, trials for CIPN treatment/prevention were not based nor on precise prevalence/incidence data, to allow a strong study design, nor on a valid outcome measure to be elected as an endpoint. However, recently, a clinimetric approach has been implemented in this field (CI-PeriNomS study(Cavaletti G C. D.-P., 2013)) enabling the foundation of a valid epidemiological study in order to give a sound basis to future clinical trials. Unravelling epidemiological issues is the first step to cure CIPN then.