Functional Living Index-Cancer Research Articles

A pilot study of the Functional Living Index-Cancer (FLIC) scale for the assessment of quality of life for metastatic lung cancer patients. An Eastern Cooperative Oncology Group study : Finkelstein DM, Cassileth BR, Bonomi PD, Ruckdeschel JC, Ezdinli EZ, Wolter JM. Division of Biostatistics, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Boston, MA 02115. Am J Clin Oncol, Cancer Clin Trials 1988;11:630-3

A pilot study of the Functional Living Index-Cancer (FLIC) scale for the assessment of quality of life for metastatic lung cancer patients. An Eastern Cooperative Oncology Group study : Finkelstein DM, Cassileth BR, Bonomi PD, Ruckdeschel JC, Ezdinli EZ, Wolter JM. Division of Biostatistics, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Boston, MA 02115. Am J Clin Oncol, Cancer Clin Trials 1988;11:630-3

A pilot study of the Functional Living Index-Cancer (FLIC) scale for the assessment of quality of life for metastatic lung cancer patients. An Eastern Cooperative Oncology Group study : Finkelstein DM, Cassileth BR, Bonomi PD, Ruckdeschel JC, Ezdinli EZ, Wolter JM. Division of Biostatistics, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Boston, MA 02115. Am J Clin Oncol, Cancer Clin Trials 1988;11:630-3

A pilot study of the Functional Living Index-Cancer (FLIC) scale for the assessment of quality of life for metastatic lung cancer patients. An Eastern Cooperative Oncology Group study : Finkelstein DM, Cassileth BR, Bonomi PD, Ruckdeschel JC, Ezdinli EZ, Wolter JM. Division of Biostatistics, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Boston, MA 02115. Am J Clin Oncol, Cancer Clin Trials 1988;11:630-3

A pilot study of the Functional Living Index-Cancer (FLIC) Scale for the assessment of quality of life for metastatic lung cancer patients. An Eastern Cooperative Oncology Group study.

Quality of life is an important factor in the assessment of cancer therapy, but it is difficult to define and measure. The Functional Living Index-Cancer (FLIC) was designed specifically for cancer patients under treatment. The Eastern Cooperative Oncology Group (ECOG) mounted a pilot study to assess the feasibility and sensitivity of the patient-oriented FLIC scale for assessment of quality of life. The results of this study show that the FLIC scores correlate with the functional status of patients on treatment: high scores on the FLIC prior to therapy were found to correlate with good performance status (p = 0.0001), and decreases in the FLIC score during therapy correlated with a decline in performance status (p = 0.0001), with poor performance status (p = 0.0002), and greater than 5% recent weight loss (p = 0.004). However, there was poor compliance to completion of the instrument, indicating a need for future research into this aspect of assessing quality of life in the cooperative group setting.

Measuring the quality of life of cancer patients: the Functional Living Index-Cancer: development and validation.

The classical criteria for the evaluation of clinical trials in cancer reflect alterations in physical well-being, but are insensitive to other important factors, such as psychosocial state, sociability, and somatic sensation that may play a critical role in determining the patients' functional response to their illness and its treatment. The Functional Living Index-Cancer is designed for easy, repeated patient self-administration. It is a 22-item questionnaire that has been validated on 837 patients in two cities over a three-year period. Criteria for validity include stability of factor analysis, concurrent validation studies against the Karnofsky, Beck Depression, Spielberger State and Trait Anxiety, and Katz Activities of Daily Living scales, as well as the scaled version of The General Health Questionnaire and The McGill/ Melzack Pain Index. The index is uncontaminated by social desirability issues. The validation studies demonstrate the lack of correlation between traditional measures of patient response and other significant functional factors such as depression and anxiety (r = 0.33), sociability and family interaction, and nausea. These findings elucidate the frequently observed discrepancies between traditional assessments of clinical response and overall functional patient outcome. The index is proposed as an adjunct to clinical trials assessment and may provide additional patient functional information on which to analyse the outcome of clinical trials or offer specific advice to individual patients.