Reference values for the EORTC QLQ-C30 in early and metastatic breast cancer

Abstract

Background: Considering the worldwide incidence of breast cancer (BC) and the importance of health-related quality of life (HRQoL) assessment, there is a growing need to have accurate and up-to-date reference values (RVs). RVs are useful for the design of randomised controlled trials (RCTs) and as benchmarks for comparison of cancer RCTs and health care interventions. This study aimed to provide RVs for the QLQ-C30 in early BC (EBC) and metastatic BC (MBC). General patterns of main results from the EORTC dataset (main dataset) were compared with the PDS dataset (comparison dataset) to see whether they would be consistent across pre-defined covariates.RCTs where baseline HRQoL (before treatment) was assessed with the QLQ-C30. RVs were calculated and stratified by disease stage, age, and when available, performance status (PS), comorbidity and region. RVs were reported using descriptive statistics. Results: Data from three EORTC (n Z 4115) and three PDS RCTs (n Z 1406) were included in the analysis. While EBC patients presented better HRQoL with high baseline functioning scores and low prevalence of symptoms, MBC patients reported worse HRQoL with lower functioning scores and more prevalence of symptoms. In MBC, poor PS and presence of comorbidities reflected worse baseline HRQoL. No consistent differences were found for age and countries. Conclusion: These up-to-date RVs for the EORTC QLQ-C30 in BC show differences in HRQoL scores between stages, PS, and comorbidities. These findings, supported by an independent dataset, will help the clinical interpretation of scores for BCpatients. ª

The Impact of Socioeconomic Determinants on the Quality of Life of Moroccan Breast Cancer Survivors Diagnosed Two Years Earlier at the National Institute of Oncology in Rabat

“…Our results attest that more than half of the survivors had a mean GHQ (57.2 ± 25.4), which is similar to the mean score of metastatic breast cancer (57.6 ± 23.1) and lower than the mean score of early breast cancer (76.9 ± 19.2) [33]. In addition, the survivors had physical (72.6 ± 28.0), social (84.5 ± 29.3), and emotional (51.2 ± 31.3) functioning that [33]. In the same perspective, the physical role and emotional functional scales in the study survivors are worse than the functional scales in the Härtl et al study [34].…”

“…For early breast cancer, RV EORTC revealed high functioning and low prevalence of symptoms, while RV from metastatic breast cancer had lower baseline Health-Related Quality of Life (HRQoL) values than those from early breast cancer, and cognitive functioning presents the highest mean scores, while role functioning presents the lowest mean score. In addition, in the symptom scales, metastatic breast cancer presents a low prevalence of nausea/vomiting and diarrhea and a high prevalence of fatigue and pain, while HRQoL was more impaired in patients with metastatic breast cancer than in the general healthy population [ 33 ].…”

Measuring Quality of Life Using Patient-Reported Outcomes in Real-World Metastatic Breast Cancer Patients: The Need for a Standardized Approach

“…To overcome the aforementioned barriers, creating dashboards that visually present the scores of a specific patient in simplified pictures, graphics or tables can be more informative than only abstractive numbers. Additionally, individual patient scores can be compared with scores of breast cancer patients with the same biological or treatment-related characteristics also known as reference scores [ 64 ]. Normative data reflect outcomes of a population unencumbered by a disease or specific condition, and can be used by both clinicians and patients to provide more context when interpreting PROs.…”

Design, organisation and impact of treatment optimisation studies in breast, lung and colorectal cancer: The experience of the European Organisation for Research and Treatment of Cancer

“…(4) Quality of life was much more commonly used as an end-point in the phase III TOSs initiated before 2007 (n Z 74) than in the industry-sponsored phase III cancer studies entered into the ClinicalTrials.gov registry before August 2006 (41.9% vs. 6.9% [42]). This highlights the prominent role that the EORTC has played and continues to play in the establishment of healthrelated quality of life as a key outcome measure of efficacy in oncology and the development of associated tools [43e47], which have been widely adopted across the areas of breast [48,49], lung [50] and colorectal [51,52] cancer. (5) Consistent with EORTC policy, the results of completed TOSs were nearly always published, leading to a publication rate that was markedly higher than those found by authors in the field for both clinical studies as a whole (97.9% vs. 46.0% [53], 66.4% [54], 66.…”