Prevalence of prognostic uncertainty and impact on prognostic discussions in thoracic oncology.

33 Background: Recent advances for late-stage lung cancer may have led to a shift from therapeutic ‘nihilism’ to ‘optimism’ (Temel, JCO 2016). It is not known whether this shift has increased prognostic uncertainty nor whether oncologists’ tolerance of uncertainty affects their prognostic discussion practices. Methods: In October 2018, we sent a 34-item survey by FedEx to a random sample of thoracic oncologists (n=444) listed in the...