NQPC-03 PROGNOSTIC SIGNIFICANCE OF QUALITY-OF-LIFE EVALUATION OVER TIME IN CLINICAL PRACTICE FOR PATIENTS WITH GLIOBLASTOMA

Abstract

BACKGROUNDSEvaluation of quality of life (QOL) has been considered as an indispensable modality for assessment of treatment impact for patients with malignant brain tumor, especially glioblastoma. However, changes in patients’ QOL under clinical practice with current standard of care (SOC) have not been clearly and routinely explored, so that solid baseline QOL data under SOC are not available for reliable comparison with those with novel treatments. Here we retrospectively examined changes in QOL during SOC in glioblastoma patients.PATIENTS AND METHODSPatients with histologically confirmed glioblastoma treated in our institute from April 2016 to April 2019, who underwent QOL evaluations using EORTC QLQ-C-30/BN-20 were eligible. Outcomes were assessed with clinical factors including therapeutic regimens.RESULTSForty-two patients, median age 64 yo (25–87), male/female 26/16, were identified having longitudinal QOL data along with medical records. Median initial KPS and mini-mental state examination (MMSE) score were 70 (20–90) and 27, respectively, suggesting this cohort containing those in good performance status. In four patients whose QOL queries were answered by a family, median MMSE was 16, indicating the impaired NCF affect self-report ability. Long term survivors without progression remained at an adequate functional scale level, while those who recurred declined in functional scale after progression, often accompanied with an increase in symptom scales associated with tumor location. The domains of declined functional scales varied among patients, and there was no clear tendency associated with patients’ backgrounds such as age and gender. The functional scale level improved in most cases when the recurrent disease was successfully treated, but it gradually declined in a stepwise fashion by repeated recurrences.CONCLUSIONSChanges in QOL in patients with glioblastoma were found to associate with disease status. The small number of patients who could be evaluated for QOL over time prevented extracting significant factors affecting QOL outcomes.