Abstract
Purpose
Findings regarding changes in the quality of life (QOL) of patients with gastrointestinal cancers (GI) undergoing chemotherapy (CTX) are inconclusive. Purpose was to evaluate for changes in QOL scores of patients with GI cancers over two cycles of CTX.
Methods
Patients (n = 397) completed disease-specific [i.e., Quality of Life-Scale-Patient Version (QOL-PV)] and generic [12-item Medical Outcomes Study Short Form Survey (SF-12)] measures of QOL a total of six times over two cycles of CTX. Changes in these QOL scores were evaluated using bootstrapped multilevel regression with full information maximum likelihood estimation. Treatment group (i.e., with or without targeted therapy), age, number of metastatic sites, time from cancer diagnosis, number of prior cancer treatments, GI cancer diagnosis (i.e., colon/rectum/anal vs. other), and CTX regimen were evaluated as covariates in the conditional models for each of the QOL scores.
Results
During the second cycle of CTX, QOL-PV scores decreased in the week following CTX administration, and then increased the following week. For both cycles of CTX, the physical component summary and mental component summary scores of the SF-12 decreased in the week following CTX administration and then increased the following week. Increased time from cancer diagnosis and a higher number of prior cancer treatments resulted in worse QOL-PV and SF-12 scores at enrollment.
Conclusions
While changes in QOL scores over the two CTX cycles were statistically significant, the differences were not clinically meaningful. Future studies need to determine the optimal timing of QOL assessments to assess changes associated with cancer treatments.
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Funding
This study was funded by a grant from the National Cancer Institute (NCI, CA134900). Dr. Christine Miaskowski is an American Cancer Society Clinical Research Professor and is funded by a K05 award from the NCI (CA168960). Mr. Tantoy was funded by a National Institutes of Health (NIH) T32 Grant (NR007088).
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All procedures performed in this study are in accordance with ethical standards of the Institutional Review Board at the University of California, San Francisco, and with the Declaration of Helsinki.
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Written informed consent was obtained from all study participants.
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Tantoy, I.Y., Cooper, B.A., Dhruva, A. et al. Quality of life of patients with gastrointestinal cancers undergoing chemotherapy. Qual Life Res 27, 1865–1876 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11136-018-1860-1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11136-018-1860-1