Expanded Prostate Cancer Index Composite (EPIC)
What is EPIC?
The Expanded Prostate Cancer Index Composite (EPIC) is a comprehensive instrument designed to evaluate patient function and bother after prostate cancer treatment. Content from the original UCLA-Prostate Cancer Index (PCI) was expanded with guidance from a development cohort of localized prostate cancer patients and an expert panel comprised of urological oncologists, radiation oncologists (including brachytherapy expertise), survey researchers, and prostate cancer nurses. These experts, patients, and review of the literature suggested a need to augment the UCLA-PCI with items to capture additional concerns relevant to brachytherapy, external beam radiation, radical prostatectomy, and androgen deprivation. Accordingly, the UCLA-PCI was supplemented with specific items addressing irritative and obstructive voiding symptoms (the original UCLA-PCI had queried principally incontinence only in urinary function assessment), hematuria, additional bowel symptoms (to improve the suboptimal bowel function scale from the original UCLA-PCI) and hormonal symptoms. Symptom-specific bother items corresponding to each symptom item were added to elicit multi-item bother scales for each HRQOL domain. Responses and comments from the development cohort were incorporated to derive the final instrument: the Expanded Prostate cancer Index Composite (EPIC)
EPIC Instruments
Most Recent Version of EPIC
26-item short-form version of EPIC
EPIC + SF12 and AUASI
EPIC - Urinary Domain only
EPIC - Bowel Domain only
EPIC - Sexual Domain only
EPIC - Hormonal Domain only
EPIC - Demographics add-on*
*This instrument can be added on to the end of any of the other EPIC instruments to collect demographic information.
Peer-reviewed Articles
Scoring Utilities
Scoring Documentation
Scoring Instructions for the EPIC-26
SAS Macro for scoring EPIC*
SAS Macro for scoring EPIC-26*
* Choose the 'Save to Disk' option after clicking
on the SAS Macro name. If your browser displays the macro on the screen
as a text file. Choose File -> Save As, and then choose a location
to save the macro.
Sample Size Table & Suggested Endpoint
Number of EPIC domains as primary
endpoints |
Domain-specific significance level
(for overall significance of 5%) |
Potential Endpoints |
Required Sample Size Per Treatment
Group (Based on Effect Size of 0.5) |
|
80% Power |
90% Power |
|||
1 |
0.05 |
Any 1 of the summary scores - Urinary, Bowel,
Sexual, Hormonal |
64 |
86 |
4 |
0.0125 |
Urinary, Bowel, Sexual, and Hormonal Summary
Scores |
91 |
116 |
5 |
0.01 |
Urinary Irritative, Urinary Incontinence, Bowel,
Sexual, and Hormonal Summary Scores |
96 |
121 |
6 |
0.0083
|
Urinary Irritative, Urinary Incontinence, Bowel,
Sexual, and Hormonal Summary Scores and SF-12 PCS |
99 |
125 |
10 |
0.005
|
Urinary Irritative, Urinary Incontinence, and
Function and Bother subscales for Urinary, Bowel, Sexual, and Hormonal
Domains |
109 |
136 |
12 |
0.0042 |
Urinary Irritative, Urinary Incontinence, Function
and Bother subscales for Urinary, Bowel, Sexual, and Hormonal Domains,
and SF-12 PCS and MCS Scores |
112 |
140 |
If less than 100% response rate is anticipated, then sample sizes will need to be adjusted. For example, an expected 75% response rate at 2 years for a study with a single endpoint and 80% power would require 86 subjects (64/0.75 = 85.33)
Control-based Norms and Other Statistics
Validation of EPIC-26 (EPIC Short Form)
Statistics for the validation process of the EPIC-26
Frequently Asked Questions
What does EPIC stand for?
EPIC stands for the Expanded Prostate Cancer Index Composite.
What
is EPIC?
EPIC is a comprehensive instrument designed to evaluate patient function
and bother after prostate cancer treatment.
Am I allowed to make copies of EPIC?
Yes, you are free to make copies and distribute EPIC
Do I need to pay a fee to use EPIC?
No, there is no fee required to use EPIC.
When reporting my findings, what article should I reference?
For any manuscript published that uses EPIC, you should reference the
EPIC validation paper published in the December 2000 issue of Urology.
The full reference is:
Wei J, Dunn R, Litwin M, Sandler H, and Sanda M. "Development and
Validation of the Expanded Prostate Cancer Index Composite (EPIC) for
Comprehensive Assessment of Health-Related Quality of Life in Men with
Prostate Cancer", Urology. 56: 899-905, 2000.
How come I cannot open the PDF files?
This is most likely due to the fact that you are either not using Adobe
Acrobat Reader or are using a previous version of the reader. These files
were created using version 4.0 of Adobe Acrobat, so version 4.0x or higher
of the reader is required to view them. This is available as a FREE download,
which can be obtained by clicking on the following icon:
Contact Information
Martin G. Sanda, M.D.
Division of Urology
Beth Israel-Deaconess Medical Center
330 Brookline Ave
Boston, MA 02215
Phone: (310) 794-7960 Fax: (310) 206-5343
msanda@bidmc.harvard.edu
John T. Wei, M.D.
University of Michigan
Department of Urology
Room 1013, Women's Trailer
1500 E. Medical Center Drive
Ann Arbor, MI 48109-5759
Phone: (734) 615-3040 Fax: (734) 936-9536
jtwei@med.umich.edu
Mark S. Litwin, M.D., M.P.H.
UCLA Department of Urology
Box 951738
Los Angeles, CA 90095-1738
Phone: (734) 615-3040 Fax: (734) 936-9127
mlitwin@mednet.ucla.ed
For information on the use of the SAS scoring macro, please contact:
Rodney L. Dunn, M.S.
University of Michigan
Department of Urology
Room 1011, Women's Trailer
1500 E. Medical Center Drive
Ann Arbor, MI 48109-5759
Phone: (734) 615-1396 Fax: (734) 936-9536
rldunn@med.umich.edu
