• Francesca Martinelli, Chantal Quinten, John T Maringwa, Corneel Coens, Jurgen Vercauteren, Charles S Cleeland, Henning Flechtner, Carolyn Gotay, Eva Greimel, Madeleine King, Tito Mendoza, David Osoba, Bryce B Reeve, Jolie Ringash, Joseph Schmucker-Von Koch, Qiuling Shi, Martin J Taphoorn, Joachim Weis, Andrew Bottomley, and European Organisation for Research and Treatment of Cancer Clinical Groups.
• Quality of Life Department, European Organisation for Research and Treatment of Cancer, Brussels, Belgium. francesca.martinelli@eortc.be
• Expert Rev Pharmacoecon Outcomes Res. 2011 Oct 1;11(5):587-99.

AimsCancer patients experience multiple and concurrent health-related problems and symptoms due to their illness and therapies. The first objective of this analysis was to identify how health-related quality-of-life (HRQoL) indicators cluster among cancer patients and how possible clusters change across patients with different sociodemographic and clinical characteristics. The second objective of this study was to identify which HRQoL indicators are linked to patients' perception of overall quality of life.MethodsRetrospective pooling of 30 closed randomized European Organisation for Research and Treatment of Cancer (EORTC) clinical trials yielded baseline EORTC Quality of Life Core Questionnaire (QLQ-C30) HRQoL data for a total of 7417 patients. A cluster analysis was performed to determine how the 15 HRQoL indicators obtained with the QLQ-C30 cluster overall and by patient characteristics.ResultsThree main clusters emerged from the overall dataset: a physical cluster, a psychological cluster and a gastrointestinal cluster. The same clusters were found in subgroups defined according to sociodemographic and clinical characteristics, while some differences emerged among cancer sites. The Global Health scale was found to be part of the physical cluster in the overall dataset. This result was consistent across different levels of disease severity, while divergent results were seen across some cancer sites.ConclusionOur findings suggest that HRQoL indicators are interrelated. Understanding these relationships may aid clinicians in managing the symptom burden experienced by patients, as well as policy-makers, in defining psychosocial support plans.

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