Health-Related Quality of Life in Oral Cancer Patients: Scoping Review and Critical Appraisal of Investigated Determinants

Cancers

Francesca Fiore¹  Raffaele Rauso²  Gianpaolo Tartaro²  Giuseppe Colella²  Giorgio Lo Giudice³  Davide De Cicco³  Antonio Troiano³  Chiara Spuntarelli³  Morena Fasano⁴  Fortunato Ciardiello⁴ 

[1] Department of Internal and Polyspecialist Medicine, A.O.U. “Luigi Vanvitelli”, 80131 Naples, Italy;Department of Multidisciplinary Medical, Surgical and Dental Specialties, University of Campania “Luigi Vanvitelli”, 80138 Naples, Italy;Department of Neurosciences, Reproductive and Odontostomatological Sciences, University of Naples “Federico II”, 80131 Naples, Italy;Department of Precision Medicine, University of Campania “Luigi Vanvitelli”, 80138 Naples, Italy;

关键词: quality of life;    HRQOL;    head;    neck;    oral cancer;    oncology;   

DOI  :  10.3390/cancers13174398

来源: DOAJ

【 摘 要 】

Background: health-related quality of life (HRQOL) represents a secondary endpoint of medical interventions in oncological patients. Our aim was to highlight potential sources of bias that could be encountered when evaluating HRQOL in oral cancer patients. Methods: this review followed PRISMA-ScR recommendations. Participants: patients treated for oral cancer. Concept: HRQOL assessed by EORTC QLQ-C30 and QLQ-H&N35/QLQ-H&N43. A critical appraisal of included studies was performed to evaluate the accuracy of data stratification with respect to HRQOL determinants. Results: overall, 30 studies met the inclusion criteria, totaling 1833 patients. In total, 8 sociodemographic (SDG) and 15 disease/treatment-specific (DT) HRQOL determinants (independent variables) were identified. The mean number of the independent variables was 6.1 (SD, 4.3)—5.0 (SD, 4.0) DT-related and 1.1 (SD, 1.8) SDG-related variables per article. None of the included papers considered all the identified determinants simultaneously. Conclusions: a substantial lack of evidence regarding HRQOL determinants was demonstrated. This strongly weakens the reliability of the reported findings due to the challenging presence of baseline confounding, selection, and omitted variable biases. The proposed approach recommends the use of further evaluation tools that gather more variables in a single score together with a selection of more homogeneous, reproducible, and comparable cohorts based on the identified baseline confounding.

【 授权许可】

Unknown