A meta-analysis of comprehensive care on quality of life in patients with lung cancer

Objective: The aim of this meta-analysis was to evaluate the efficacy of comprehensive care on quality of life in patients with lung cancer. Methods: The clinical studies about comprehensive care on quality of life in patients with lung cancer were searched in the Medline, PubMed, EMBASE, CNKI, and WANFANG databases. The score of society function, emotional function, somatic function, cognitive function was collected in each of the included studies. And the data were pooled by Stata version 11.0 software. Result: Finally, three clinical studies including 536 cases were included in this meta-analysis. Significant statistical heterogeneity was existed in the three papers (P < 0.05). The data were pooled by random effect model. The combined results showed that the quality of life for lung cancer patients can be significantly improved in the aspects of society function (standardized mean difference [SMD] = 0.41, 95% confidence interval [CI]: 0.10-0.71), emotional function (SMD = 0.45, 0.12-0.78), somatic function (SMD = 0.98, 95% CI: 0.51-1.44), and cognitive function (SMD = 0.64, 95% CI: 0.44-0.83). Conclusion: Quality of life for lung cancer patients can be significantly improved through comprehensive care.