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Current quality of life assessment tools may not fully address dermatological adverse events from anti-cancer therapies

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Abstract

Supportive oncodermatology is a burgeoning new field within dermatology tasked with caring for the unique dermatologic needs of patients with cancer. Patients with dermatologic adverse events (dAEs) from localized and systemic anti-cancer therapies commonly experience significant distress and reduced health-related quality of life (HRQoL). Emerging dAEs is often overlooked by clinicians and researchers, despite their considerable impacts on treatment completion and patient self-esteem. Specific HRQoL issues experienced by cancer patients with dAEs include psychosocial distress and treatment interruption or cessation. Existing HRQoL assessment indices unfortunately fall short when assessing HRQoL in patients with dAEs from anti-cancer therapies due to the lack of specificity to patients’ symptoms and inability to fully encompass the unique needs of this population. Additionally, the variability in HRQoL assessments across studies is substantial, suggesting the need for a standardized HRQoL measure. Here, we review the burden of dAEs and the existing validated tools used to measure them, while outlining strategies for modification to achieve optimal HRQoL assessment in patients with dAEs from anti-cancer therapies and address the HRQoL gap in supportive oncodermatology. Amongst the current tools, Skindex-16 most closely addresses the required skin-specific HRQoL metrics, but still lacks a few key cancer-specific measures. Other general HRQoL tools are well-tailored to cancer patients, but lack skin-specific questions.

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Abbreviations

dAE:

Dermatologic adverse event

HRQoL:

Health-related quality of life

DLQI:

Dermatology Life Quality Index

EORTC QLQ-C30:

European Organization for Research and Treatment of Cancer Core Quality of Life Questionnaire

SF-36:

36-Item Short Form Survey

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Acknowledgements

T. Behroozian and S. Fatima contributed equally to this work. Dr. Mara Beveridge is the senior author.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Michael G. DeGroote School of Medicine, McMaster University, Hamilton, ON, Canada

    Tara Behroozian

  2. Department of Dermatology, University Hospitals, Cleveland, OH, USA

    Sakeena Fatima & Mara Beveridge

  3. Faculty of Medicine, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv, Israel

    Samuel Finkelstein

  4. Faculty of Medicine, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada

    Lauren Kanee

  5. Department of Radiation Oncology, Azienda Ospedaliero-Universitaria Careggi, Florence, Italy

    Pierluigi Bonomo

  6. Department of Dermatology, University of Rochester Medical Centre, Rochester, NY, USA

    Julie Ryan Wolf

  7. Department of Radiation Oncology, Bank of Cyprus Oncology Centre, Nicosia, Cyprus

    Vassilios Vassiliou

  8. Netherlands Comprehensive Cancer Organization, Utrecht, Netherlands

    Corina van den Hurk

  9. Department of Radiation Oncology, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada

    Edward Chow

Authors
  1. Tara Behroozian
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  2. Sakeena Fatima
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  3. Samuel Finkelstein
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  4. Lauren Kanee
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  6. Julie Ryan Wolf
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  7. Vassilios Vassiliou
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  8. Corina van den Hurk
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  9. Edward Chow
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  10. Mara Beveridge
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Contributions

All authors contributed to the manuscript’s conception and design. The first draft of the manuscript was written by Tara Behroozian, Sakeena Fatima, Samuel Finkelstein, and Lauren Kanee, and all authors commented on previous versions of the manuscript. The authors read and approved the final manuscript.

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Correspondence to Tara Behroozian.

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Behroozian, T., Fatima, S., Finkelstein, S. et al. Current quality of life assessment tools may not fully address dermatological adverse events from anti-cancer therapies. Support Care Cancer 30, 9681–9685 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00520-022-07424-5

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