To the Editor With great interest, I read the randomized clinical trial by Nipp et al.1 This trial represents an important step in examining the role of patient-reported outcome measures (PROMs) in the inpatient setting. However, I believe that the results need to be taken within the larger context of PROM use in oncology for the following reasons. First, it is important to note that patients in the usual care arm completed the PROMs in contrast to the trial by Basch et al,2 where patients in the usual care arm had a standard assessment. Evidence supporting PROMs suggests that better patient–clinician communication leads to an enhanced symptom identification compared with the standard clinical assessment, which might change the management leading to improved outcomes.3 Administering the PROM in the control group, despite not being used by the clinicians for assessment, might have primed patients to better express their symptoms, including severity and patterns,3 thus inadvertently narrowing the potential gap of symptom identification between the intervention and control.