BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE: To compare the course of symptoms and health-related quality-of-life (HRQOL) after immediate thoracic radiotherapy (TRT) between symptomatic (S) and non-symptomatic (NS) patients with advanced NSCLC. PATIENTS AND METHODS: 407 stage III/IV patients were initially treated with immediate TRT within a randomised phase III trial comparing different fractionation schedules. At inclusion, patients were prospectively stratified according to presence (S) or absence (NS) of tumour-related chest/airway symptoms to facilitate comparison between these groups. The EORTC QLQ-C30 and LC-13 were used for symptom and HRQOL assessments at baseline and at regular intervals up to 1 year (N=395). RESULTS: NS patients had significantly more favourable baseline characteristics when compared to S patients with a median survival of 11.8 versus 6.0 months (P<0.0001), respectively. At baseline, S patients demonstrated HRQOL scores inferior to those of NS patients (P<0.01) for most scales. Until week 14, NS patients developed more symptoms while S patients experienced symptom relief in most scales. After week 14, no significant differences could be observed between the groups. CONCLUSION: This study indicates that immediate TRT, given to patients with minimal/none chest symptoms, does not prevent development of disease-related symptoms and diminished HRQOL. A wait-and-see policy appears to be acceptable.
RCT Entities:
BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE: To compare the course of symptoms and health-related quality-of-life (HRQOL) after immediate thoracic radiotherapy (TRT) between symptomatic (S) and non-symptomatic (NS) patients with advanced NSCLC. PATIENTS AND METHODS: 407 stage III/IV patients were initially treated with immediate TRT within a randomised phase III trial comparing different fractionation schedules. At inclusion, patients were prospectively stratified according to presence (S) or absence (NS) of tumour-related chest/airway symptoms to facilitate comparison between these groups. The EORTC QLQ-C30 and LC-13 were used for symptom and HRQOL assessments at baseline and at regular intervals up to 1 year (N=395). RESULTS:NSpatients had significantly more favourable baseline characteristics when compared to S patients with a median survival of 11.8 versus 6.0 months (P<0.0001), respectively. At baseline, S patients demonstrated HRQOL scores inferior to those of NSpatients (P<0.01) for most scales. Until week 14, NSpatients developed more symptoms while S patients experienced symptom relief in most scales. After week 14, no significant differences could be observed between the groups. CONCLUSION: This study indicates that immediate TRT, given to patients with minimal/none chest symptoms, does not prevent development of disease-related symptoms and diminished HRQOL. A wait-and-see policy appears to be acceptable.
Authors: Zhengfei Zhu; Jianjiao Ni; Xuwei Cai; Shengfa Su; Hongqing Zhuang; Zhenzhou Yang; Ming Chen; Shenglin Ma; Conghua Xie; Yaping Xu; Jiancheng Li; Hong Ge; Anwen Liu; Lujun Zhao; Chuangzhou Rao; Congying Xie; Nan Bi; Zhouguang Hui; Guangying Zhu; Zhiyong Yuan; Jun Wang; Lina Zhao; Wei Zhou; Chai Hong Rim; Arturo Navarro-Martin; Ben G L Vanneste; Dirk De Ruysscher; J Isabelle Choi; Jacek Jassem; Joe Y Chang; Lucyna Kepka; Lukas Käsmann; Michael T Milano; Paul Van Houtte; Rafal Suwinski; Alberto Traverso; Hiroshi Doi; Yang-Gun Suh; Georges Noël; Natsuo Tomita; Roman O Kowalchuk; Terence T Sio; Baosheng Li; Bing Lu; Xiaolong Fu Journal: Transl Lung Cancer Res Date: 2022-09