• Takeru Shiroiwa, Takashi Fukuda, Kojiro Shimozuma, Masaru Kuranami, Kimito Suemasu, Yasuo Ohashi, and Toru Watanabe.
• Department of Biomedical Sciences, College of Life Sciences, Ritsumeikan University, Shiga, Japan. t.shiroiwa@gmail.com
• Value Health. 2011 Jul 1; 14 (5): 746-51.

ObjectiveTo examine health-related quality of life, we investigated the effect of adjuvant chemotherapy regimens on utility scores assessed by the EuroQoL-5D (EQ-5D) instrument in a randomized, controlled trial for breast cancer patients after surgery. We also investigated the relationship between Functional Assessment of Cancer Therapy (FACT) scale scores and EQ-5D utilities.MethodsPatients were randomly assigned to the following four chemotherapy regimens: four cycles of anthracycline followed by paclitaxel (ACP), four cycles of anthracycline-containing regimens followed by docetaxel (ACD), eight cycles of paclitaxel (PTX), and eight cycles of docetaxel (DTX). Of 1060 registered, the first 300 consecutive patients were included in the current utility study. Utility scores were assessed using the EQ-5D instrument at baseline; cycles 3, 5, and 7; 7 months; and 1 year. We also evaluated the correlation between these scores and FACT-G, -B, and -Taxane scores at each time point.ResultsUtility scores were significantly lower in the DTX group than in the ACP and ACD groups. Mean utility scores in the DTX group were lowest at 7 months and tended to remain low for a long time. The combined anthracycline followed by taxane group had significantly higher utility scores that the taxane-alone group, with no significant difference depending on the type of taxane. Only the FACT-G social/family well-being subscale had no relationship with EQ-5D responses and utility scores.ConclusionsAlthough the regimens in this study were similar in that they included taxane, the mean utility scores and longitudinal patterns of utility scores were different among regimens.Copyright © 2011 International Society for Pharmacoeconomics and Outcomes Research (ISPOR). Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

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