Unravelling the heterogeneity of soft tissue and bone sarcoma patients’ health-related quality of life: a systematic literature review with focus on tumour location

Abstract

Patients with sarcoma experience many physical and psychological symptoms, adversely affecting their health-related quality of life (HRQoL). HRQoL assessment is challenging due to the diversity of the disease. This review aims to unravel the heterogeneity of HRQoL of patients with sarcoma with regard to tumour location and to summarise the used measures in research. English-language literature from four databases published between January 2000 and April 2019 was reviewed. Studies that described adult sarcoma HRQoL outcomes were included and classified according to primary sarcoma location. Eighty-seven articles met the inclusion criteria covering sarcoma of the extremities (n=35), pelvis and axial skeleton (n=9), pelvis and extremities (n=5), head and neck (n=4), retroperitoneum (n=2) and multiple sarcoma locations (n=33), respectively. Urogenital and thoracic sarcoma were lacking. Fifty-four different questionnaires were used, most often cancer-generic or generic HRQoL questionnaires. Patients with sarcoma reported lower HRQoL than the general population. Distinctive patterns of HRQoL outcomes according to tumour location regarding symptoms, physical functioning, disability and psychosocial well-being were identified. In metastatic sarcoma, mostly constitutional symptoms were present. To comprehensively assess HRQoL, a sarcoma-specific measurement strategy should be developed and used covering the heterogeneity of sarcoma including location-specific issues to improve personalised HRQoL assessment in future research and clinical practice.

Incorporating the Patient Voice in Sarcoma Research: How Can We Assess Health-Related Quality of Life in This Heterogeneous Group of Patients? A Study Protocol

“…Clinical data will be extracted from patient records. The study started already with recruitment at the first center in May 2019, and a systematic review of the literature has recently been published [42].…”

“…First, a search of the literature through four medical search engines has been performed to identify all relevant HRQoL issues and existing HRQoL questionnaires currently used among sarcoma patients. The search strategy was created with the help of a librarian and combined medical subject headings (MeSH) terms and keywords for sarcoma and quality of life [42]. The reference lists of all identified publications will be reviewed to retrieve other relevant publications.…”

Do repeated surgical interventions in patients with lumbar paraspinal Ewing s sarcoma increase survival by supporting pharmacological treatment A comprehensive systematic review

“…Local therapy can be applied with or after chemotherapy. Surgical operation is performed in some cases [22], and radiotherapy is applied instead of surgical operation or in addition to the operation [23]. However, no studies have investigated whether repeated surgery may positively contribute to standard chemotherapy.…”

Anlotinib: A Novel Targeted Drug for Bone and Soft Tissue Sarcoma

“…STS is pathologically complex and has more than 100 subtypes, the most common of which include undifferentiated pleomorphic sarcoma, liposarcoma, and leiomyosarcoma ( 4 – 8 ) ( Figure 1 ). Prior to the introduction of chemotherapies, the long-term survival rate was only 20–40% in patients with bone sarcoma and only 35% in patients with STS ( 9 , 10 ). Since the 1970s, chemotherapies have been associated with significantly better outcomes for sarcoma, and the five-year survival rate is 60–80% in patients treated using chemotherapies and surgical resection.…”