Quality of life and the treatment of advanced lung cancer.

Lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer deaths worldwide, with the majority of patients presenting with advanced disease. Despite the introduction of newer therapeutic agents and modest survival improvement, the overall prognosis for these patients is poor. The goals of therapy should therefore include improvement in quality of life (QOL), palliation of symptoms, and prolongation of survival. Quality of life has now become recognized as an important outcome measure for cancer therapy. Quality-of-life endpoints are being increasingly incorporated into clinical trials of newer agents to further define meaningful response. The assessment of QOL involves comprehensive measurement tools that address the physical, social, functional, and emotional well-being of the patient. Such measurements should be easy to use, meaningful, and relevant to the patients and clinician. Although these measures assess the longitudinal impact of treatment on QOL, pretreatment QOL scores may also be an important prognostic factor for survival in patients with lung carcinoma. This article reviews QOL measures and the data for QOL benefits from therapy in patients with advanced small-cell and non-small-cell lung cancer.