Quality of life in lung cancer patients

The quality of life of lung cancer patients is affected by several factors related to the patients, stage of disease and treatment characteristics. Fo r small-cell lung cancer (SCLC), the treatment is generally aggressive, pri marily based on chemotherapy. Treatment strategy for non-small-cell lung ca ncer (NSCLC) is strongly dependent on the stage of the disease and ranges f rom surgery to palliative chemotherapy. Over the last few years, very littl e progress has been made in terms of survival. Therefore, the effect of tre atment on quality of life has become progressively more relevant. Among the instruments for measuring quality of life, there are some specifically dev eloped for lung cancer, such as the European Organization for Research and Treatment of Cancer (EORTC) LC-13 questionnaire, the Functional Assessment of Cancer Therapy (FACT-L) questionnaire and the Lung Cancer Symptom Scale (LCSS). Up to now, few randomised clinical trials have correctly evaluated quality of life. There are evident pitfalls associated with the use of freq uently non-validated tools, and poor methods of data analysis, but quality- of-life evaluation is crucial and should be addressed through well-planned and well-conducted prospective clinical trials.