A systematic review of health-related quality of life in cutaneous melanoma

Abstract

Melanoma can be considered an emerging chronic disease that may considerably affect patients’ lives. The authors systematically reviewed the available literature on health-related quality of life (HRQOL) and melanoma. Of reviews and the selected studies, reference lists were hand-searched. The quality of the eligible studies was appraised based on 14 previously published criteria. Of the 158 abstracts, 44 articles were appraised, resulting in 13 selected studies written in English (published between 2001 and 2008). Most studies assessed patients from specialised centres with varying, but relatively advanced, disease stages. The most commonly used instruments were the SF-36 and EORTC QLQ-C30. Recently, a melanoma-specific HRQOL questionnaire [FACT-Melanoma (FACT-M)] was introduced for clinical trial purposes. It showed that approximately one-third of melanoma patients experienced considerable levels of distress, mostly at the time of diagnosis and following treatment. Systemic therapies affected HRQOL negatively in the short term, but to a lesser extent in the long term. Health status and patients’ psychological characteristics are associated with higher levels of HRQOL impairment. The authors found that the impact of melanoma on patients’ HRQOL is comparable to that of other cancers. Accurately assessing HRQOL impairment in melanoma patients is pivotal, as it may affect disease management, including therapy and additional counselling, future preventive behaviour and perhaps even prognosis.

Nonprogression with Avelumab Treatment Associated with Gains in Quality of Life in Metastatic Merkel Cell Carcinoma

“…Whereas PD was associated with significant and clinically meaningful reductions in HRQoL and utility, patients in nonprogressed health states (including SD and partial or complete response) had stable HRQoL scores or experienced small -although not clinically meaningful -improvements in HRQoL. In contrast, studies have shown that treatment with chemotherapy often comes at the cost of decrements in HRQoL caused by side effects of therapy [40,41].…”

Measures of health-related quality of life in diabetes-related foot disease: a systematic review

“…HRQOL PROMs were rated according to pre-defined criteria (assessing study quality, quality of tool employed and the generalisability of outcomes) [3]. The score was adapted to ensure its relevance to diabetes-related foot disease [4] and an overall quality 'score' (range, 0-15) was assigned as a gross marker of fulfilment of the criteriawhere 0 represented poorest quality and 15 best quality.…”

Malignant Melanoma S3‐Guideline “Diagnosis, Therapy and Follow‐up of Melanoma”

“…Two systematic reviews have shown that one third of all melanoma patients exhibit clinically relevant distress, especially anxiety symptoms [652,653].…”

“…Patients experience a deterioration of QL around the time of primary diagnosis, disease progression, and during systemic therapy [504,513,518,652,660,668,674,675]. Predisposing factors regarding QL progression have been insufficiently validated, albeit some studies have indicated a negative correlation with female gender, preexisting depression, lower social status, and lack of coping [655,676].…”