Assessment of the quality of life of patients with cancer: Current state of the problem

Abstract

The successes of modern medicine in the treatment of malignant neoplasms have led to increased interest in the study of quality of life (QOL), which is considered one of the endpoints of modern clinical research in oncology. This study aimed to identify the main features of the current state and patterns of further development in assessing the QOL of patients with cancer. This study was based on a bibliographic search in PubMed and Google Scholar. A literature search was conducted using pairs of keywords quality of lifeoncology, quality of lifecancer, quality of lifequestionnairesoncology, patient-reported outcome (PRO)oncology, and quality-adjusted life-year (QALY)oncology for articles published from 2017 to 2022 in Russian and English. Further, the articles were identified manually through the article link lists. PROs are currently considered the generally accepted standard for collecting data on the subjective perception of patients with cancer regarding their health status. Numerous questionnaires for assessing QOL are available, but the Functional Assessment of Cancer TherapyGeneral and the European Organisation for Research and Treatment of Cancer Quality of Life Questionnaire are preferred. The combination of advanced technologies allows the collection of more reliable PRO data. Thus, unified approaches for the application of PRO results in large clinical trials are necessary.