Baseline quality of life is associated with survival among people with advanced lung cancer

Abstract

Introduction

Lung cancer patients presenting with advanced cancer face low survival rates and a high symptom burden. There have been mixed findings for the association between survival and various patient reported outcomes (PROs).

Methods

We used prospective data from 111 lung cancer patients with advanced stage III/IV disease to investigate the association of survival with PROs (European Organization for Research and Treatment of Cancer Core-30 and Lung Module). Cox proportional hazard models were used to examine the individual association between several PRO measures and survival.

Results

Pain in chest and global quality of life (QoL) were found to have the strongest association with survival with a 20% increased hazard of death per 10% increase in pain in chest and 14% decrease in hazard of death per 10% increase in global QoL.

Conclusion

Our results provide more evidence for the value of PRO data to inform clinical and patient decision-making.

Keywords:

• Lung cancer
• oncology
• quality of life
• symptoms
• survival

Data availability

Data generated and analyzed for the current study are not publicly available but are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.

Conflict of interest

None of the authors have a conflict of interest to declare.