Health-related quality of life measures in cancer

The article provides a description of the characteristics of health-related quality of life (HRQOL) measures most frequently used in cancer research, such as the EORTC Quality of Life Questionnaire Core 30 Items (QLQ-C30), the Functional Assessment of Chronic Illness Therapy (FACIT) Measurement System, the Rotterdam Symptom Checklist (RSCL), and the Symptom Distress Scale (SDS). Quality-of-life instruments have been used more in research than in clinical practice. A standardised method of evaluating quality of life can help us to understand patient problems to the same degree as standard biological assessments do. This could provide an easy way to anticipate the main problems of the patient. Its function could be similar to that of a thermometer, which detects fever without revealing its cause, the identification of which is the physician's task. The development of questionnaires in electronic format could help support the clinical use of HRQOL questionnaires, in particular through the use of HTML or similar format with an automatic scoring, a data-entry database and a graphic presentation of the scores. Quality-of-life data could be also used to improve the communication between doctor and patient in order to elicit the patient's preferences concerning anticancer and symptom therapies.