Assessment of patient-reported outcomes in patients with melanoma.

Assessment of patient-reported outcomes (PROs) provides important information to assist with clinical decision making. There has been significant progress in the field of PROs over the past 2 decades with the introduction of validated disease- and symptom-specific instruments. The Functional Assessment of Cancer Therapy-Melanoma (FACT-M) is a melanoma-specific module to accompany the FACT-General, which was validated to assess health-related quality of life for patients with all stages of melanoma. Melanoma-specific health state utilities also have been reported from a number of studies. Assessment of PROs should be incorporated into routine clinical practice to inform clinicians and researchers of the patient perspective for clinical decision making and to evaluate the effects of psychosocial and medical interventions.