Quality of life in lung cancer patients due to treatment

Lung cancer is the second most common cancer in men and women. Survival has not significantly improved despite new therapeutic possibilities. Therefore, in pa-tients with end-stage disease, the primary goal is to preserve the quality of life as long as possible.

The study included patients divided into four groups depending on the treatment: treated with chemotherapy, radiotherapy, a combination of chemotherapy and radio-therapy and patients treated with sympto-matic therapy. Each group consists of 30 subjects. We measured quality of life using a questionnaire of the European Associa-tion for the Study and Treatment of Cancer in addition of no.13 for lung cancer (EO-RTC QLQ C30 + LC13), which is validated and translated in the native language and includes 43 questions.

Patients who are on symptomatic therapy have the worst quality of life, and all as-pects of normal functioning are the most disturbed when compared to patients treated with other therapeutic modalities. Quality of life is best for patients who are treated with chemotherapy. Any modality of treatment, especially chemotherapy, is superior to the use of only symptomatic treatment. 

lung cancer, quality of life, chem-otherapy

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