Background: Lung cancer is the most common malignancies and remains the leading cause of cancer-related deaths in Viet Nam. Majority of cases present initially at late stage. Palliative chemotherapy is the standard treatment for these situations to prolong survival and improve quality of life for the patient.
Purpose: To appreciate quality of life in patients in late stage non-small cell lung cancer pre-post, during palliative chemotherapy and to determine the factors affecting on post-chemotherapy quality of life.
Patients and Methods: A prospective, descriptive study, eligible patients included 65 late stage non-small cell lung cancer patients from Hue University Hospital from 1/2014 to 6/2016. The EORTC QLQ-C30 and Lung cancer Questionnaire EORTC QLQ-LC13 were used to assess quality of life. T-test was used to compare quality of life score at two assessed times. T-test, ANOVA, Mann Whitney, Kruskal Wallis were used to determine the correlation between 2 factors. Pearson and Spearman Coefficient were used to measure the strength of relationship between the factors.
Results: The most effected age group was 54.4 ± 11.3. The global health scale before treatment was 47.3± 23.6, the functional scales as well as disease-related symptom scales improved clearly after the 2nd cycle (64.8 ± 16.0) and were relatively stable at the 4th cycle of chemotherapy (62.2 ± 19.3). Meanwhile, the toxicities including hair loss and peripheral neuropathy rose gradually after chemotherapy cycles. Age, occupation, nationality, religion, weight loss, PS, pathology, stage of disease, chemotherapy regimen, progressive disease, disease-related symptoms and treatment-related toxicities associated post-chemotherapy quality of life.
Conclusions: This study showed that there were an improvement of quality of life after chemotherapy. Epidemiologic, clinical, treatment factors had effects on post-chemotherapy quality of life.
Key words: lung cancer, quality of life, palliative chemotherapy
Palliative chemotherapy beyond three courses conveys no survival or consistent quality-of-life benefits in advanced non-small-cell lung cancer
