Purpose: Symptom control and improved quality of life (QOL) are primary goals of treatment in palliative oncology. The present study assessed and compared patient demographics, baseline Karnofsky Performance Status (KPS) and QOL using the QLQ-C15-PAL questionnaire prior to palliative radiotherapy (RT) for bone, brain, or lung disease. Few studies have used this questionnaire, an abbreviated version that was developed by the European Organization for Research and Treatment of Cancer specifically for patients with advanced cancer to decrease the burden of completing the longer, more time-consuming QLQ-C30.
Methods: Patients referred to an outpatient palliative RT clinic completed QLQ-C15-PAL questionnaires prior to palliative RT for bone, brain, or lung cancer sites. The associations between baseline QLQ-C15-PAL functional/symptom scales, patient demographics, and clinical variables including KPS were explored.
Results: When data from all 369 patients were analyzed, higher KPS scores correlated significantly with better overall QOL and higher physical and emotional functioning. The QLQ-C15-PAL provided more detailed information regarding how symptom burden varied depending on disease site. Patients with bone metastases had worse QLQ-C15-PAL scores for pain, while those with brain and lung disease had worse scores for fatigue. Other health-related QOL scores measured by the QLQ-C15-PAL varied as a function of age and gender.
Conclusion: As the QLQ-C15-PAL provides detailed and often critical information regarding symptom burden, it may eventually be recognized as a universal core questionnaire to assess QOL in this patient population with advanced cancer while relieving the survey burden.