What are the pertinent quality-of-life issues for melanoma cancer patients? Aiming for the development of a new module to accompany the EORTC core questionnaire.

Melanoma is the most serious type of skin cancer. However, there is a paucity of evidence on the impact of melanoma on the quality of life (QoL) of patients. Only two clinically validated QoL instruments have been reported in the literature. The present study has identified contemporary QoL issues during a time of great change for melanoma treatment, as a precursor to an international study to develop a new melanoma-specific QoL instrument. Twenty-two melanoma patients (American Joint Committee on Cancer stages I-IV) and 10 close family members were recruited from a metropolitan tertiary referral clinical and research centre in Sydney, Australia, to participate in interview or focus group discussions. Verbatim transcripts of these recorded interviews were systematically analysed. Seventy-three issues across seven health-related QoL domains were identified. Issues across three domains featured highly; psychosocial, availability of support and information. Given the current rapid evolution of systemic therapies for melanoma, the challenges associated with treatment choices and clinical trial participation were also highlighted in this sample. Although some issues were generic in nature, experienced by many cancer patients, this study revealed that the wide range and intensity of QoL issues reported by melanoma patients are not adequately evaluated in current QoL instruments. With the increasing importance of patient reported outcome measurement, this list has been transformed into questionnaire items, in collaboration with the European Organization for Research and Treatment of Cancer (EORTC) Quality-of-Life Group, for testing a new melanoma-specific QoL module for use with the EORTC core questionnaire (QLQ-C30).