- It will be important to determine whether any determined survival benefit is associated with improvements in symptoms or does a worsening of symptoms offset the increase in survival. Precedence exists for measuring non-therapeutic endpoints in oncology research, and specifically in studies evaluating therapeutic benefit in patients with CNS tumors. There have been efforts in neuro-oncology to evaluate secondary endpoints using validated instruments as an additional indicator of benefit. The M.D. Anderson Symptom Inventory-Brain Tumor Module (MDASI-BT) and Spine Tumor Module (MDASI-SP) allows for the self-reporting of symptom severity and interference with daily activities for patients with either brain or spinal cord tumors. The availability of validated instruments provides an opportunity to prospectively assess the impact of treatment, both positive and negative, on patients.