Jm. Blazeby et al., DEVELOPMENT OF AN EORTC QUESTIONNAIRE MODULE TO BE USED IN QUALITY-OF-LIFE ASSESSMENT FOR PATIENTS WITH ESOPHAGEAL CANCER, European journal of cancer, 32A(11), 1996, pp. 1912-1917
Quality of life (QOL) assessments in patients with oesophageal cancer
should provide clinically meaningful data that can assist management d
ecision making. This study describes the development of a specific mod
ule for oesophageal cancer to use with the European Organisation into
Research and Treatment of Cancer (EORTC) QOL questionnaire, the EORTC
QLQ-C30. Relevant QOL issues were generated from a literature search a
nd interviews with patients and oesophageal cancer specialists. Issues
were formulated into items compatible with those of the EORTC QLQ-C30
. The provisional module was pretested in patients from the United Kin
gdom, Spain and Sweden. The resulting module, the QLQ-OES 24, includes
24 items conceptualised as containing six scales and five single item
s. The addition of an oesophageal cancer-specific module to the core q
uestionnaire should improve the sensitivity and specificity of the cor
e instrument to allow detection of even small benefits accrued from ne
w treatment modalities. Copyright (C) 1996 Elsevier Science Ltd