Oncology Assessment

Cancer patient evaluation using ECOG (Eastern Cooperative Oncology Group) Performance Status, for treatment planning and prognosis.

Scoring

Instrument: ECOG Performance Status. Range 0–5.

• 0 — fully active.
• 1 — restricted.
• 2 — ambulatory.
• 3 — limited self-care.
• 4 — completely disabled.
• 5 — dead.

What it covers

Demographics; cancer diagnosis; treatment history; current treatment; symptom assessment; side effects; laboratory results; current medications; psychosocial status; and functional/nutritional status.

Common pitfalls

• Treating ECOG as a fixed, one-time rating — performance status can change significantly over the course of treatment (both improving and declining); it should be reassessed at treatment decision points, not scored once at diagnosis and left static.
• Using ECOG in isolation to decide treatment eligibility — it's an important input to treatment-tolerance decisions, but not the only one; comorbidities, patient preference, and specific treatment toxicity profiles all factor in alongside it.
• Skipping psychosocial assessment because the focus is oncological — a cancer diagnosis has major psychosocial impact that materially affects treatment adherence and quality of life; it isn't a lower- priority afterthought.

Learn more

• FormExamples: oncology-assessment for the full implementation, clinical references, and worked examples.
• Palliative Assessment for a related assessment relevant to advanced disease.