Subjective and objective prospective, long-term analysis of quality of life during inhaled interleukin-2 immunotherapy

Purpose: We conducted bath a subjective and objective, prospective quality- of-life analysis during high-dose (36 x 10(6) immunizing units/d) inhalatio nal interleukin (IL)-2 treatment (mean treatment time, 13.4 months) of 15 p atients with metastatic renal cell carcinoma (mRCC), Additionally, quality of rife for 10 patients with mRCC receiving low-dose (9 x 10(6) IU/m(2)/d f or 5 days) intravenous IL-2 treatment also was evaluated, patients and Methods: Patients responded to the European Organization for R esearch and Treatment of Cancer quality-of-life questionnaire QLQ-C30 befor e and during inhalational IL-2 treatment at 1, 3, 6, 9, and 12 months and b efore and once during intravenous IL-2 treatment, A clinician assessed pati ent well-being using the Quality of Well-Being scale to calculate once week ly quality-adjusted life-years (QALYs) during inhalational IL-2 treatment. Results: patients completed 103 questionnaires and clinicians performed 892 QALY calculations. For patients heated with inhalational IL-2, the mean qu ality-of-life score deteriorated modestly but significantly I month after t reatment initiation (15.1%, P = .01) but did not differ significantly from pretreatment scores after 3, 6, 9, and 12 months of treatment. Inhalational IL-2 therapy stabilized patient quality of life for a mean of 13.4 months, The resulting QALY calculation for patients on inhalation IL-2 was 70.1% o f 13.4 months, representing 9.4 months of QALY, In comparison, patients who received intravenous IL-2 showed a more marked, statistically significant deterioration in mean quality-af-life score during treatment (27%, P = .006 ); moreover, three of these 10 patients experienced treatment-related toxic ity that prevented questionnaire completion. Conclusion: Quality-of-life analysis during immunotherapy provides valuable information regarding cancer treatment outcomes. a 1999 by American Societ y of Clinical Oncology.