Quality-of-life (QoL) assessment and reporting in prostate cancer: A systematic review of phase III trials published between 2012 and 2016.

Abstract

219 Background: We previously reported that QoL is not included among endpoints and QoL results are significantly underreported in a high proportion of recently published phase III trials in oncology. In this study our aim was to describe QoL prevalence and heterogeneity in QoL reporting in prostate cancer (PC) phase III trials. Methods: Whole database included all primary publications (P) of phase III trials evaluating anticancer drugs published between 2012 and 2016 by 11 major journals. For this analysis, we extracted the subset of PC trials. We analyzed QoL inclusion among endpoints, presence of QoL results and methodology of QoL analysis. Results: 35 P were identified (21 in castration-resistant [CRPC], 9 in advanced hormone sensitive [aHSPC], incl. both metastatic and biochemical relapsed, and 5 in earlier stages). In 13 (37.1%) QoL was not listed among study endpoints: 7/21 (33.3%) in CRPC, 3/9 (33.3%) in aHSPC, and 3/5 (60%) in earlier stages. Out of 22 primary P of trials including QoL among endpoints, QoL results were not reported in 9 (40.9%). Overall, no QoL data were available in 22/35 (62.9%) primary P (61.9% in CRPC, 44.4% in aHSPC and 100% in earlier disease). QoL data were not available in 15/25 (60%) trials with overall survival (OS) as primary endpoint, and in 7/10 (70%) trials with other primary endpoints. QoL data were not available in 7/16 (43.8%) trials with a positive result (25% in CRPC, 40% in aHSPC, 100% in earlier stages). In 18 trials with available QoL results (incl. secondary publications), most common QoL tools were FACT-P (11, 61.1%) and EORTC QLQ-C30 (6, 33.3%). Common methods of analysis were mean changes (6, 33.3%), mean scores over time (6, 33.3%), time to deterioration (6, 33.3%) and proportion of responders (3, 16.7%). QoL analysis was focused on the impact of toxicity in 10 cases (mostly in earlier stages), and on disease symptoms in 10 cases (mostly in CRPC). Conclusions: QoL is absent in a high proportion of recently published phase III trials in PC, although presence of QoL results is better in positive trials, especially in CRPC. Methodology of QoL analysis is heterogeneous in terms of type of instruments, analysis and presentation of results.