• Sarah Sloot, Jason Boland, John A Snowden, Yousef Ezaydi, Andrea Foster, Alison Gethin, Tracy Green, Louise Chopra, Stans Verhagen, Kris Vissers, Yvonne Engels, and Sam H Ahmedzai.
• Department of General Surgery, UMCG, Groningen, Hanzeplein, PO 30.001, 9713 GZ, Groningen, The Netherlands, sarahsloot@gmail.com.
• Support Care Cancer. 2015 Mar 1; 23 (3): 671-8.

BackgroundPain is a common symptom in patients with multiple myeloma (MM). Many patients are dependent on analgesics and in particular opioids, but there is limited information on the impact of these drugs and their side effects on health-related quality of life (HRQoL).MethodIn a cross-sectional study, semi-structured interviews were performed in 21 patients attending the hospital with symptomatic MM on pain medications. HRQoL was measured using items 29 and 30 of the European Organisation for Research and Treatment of Cancer (EORTC) QLQ-C30.ResultsPatients were able to recall a median of two (range 0-4) analgesics. They spontaneously identified a median of two (range 1-5) side effects attributable to their analgesic medications. Patients' assessment of HRQoL based on the EORTC QLQ-C30 questions 29/30 was mean 48.3 (95 % CI; 38.7-57.9) out of 100. Patients' assessment of their HRQoL in the hypothetical situation, in which they would not experience any side effects from analgesics, was significantly higher: 62.6 (53.5-71.7) (t test, p = 0.001).ConclusionThis study provides, for the first time, evidence that side effects of analgesics are common in symptomatic MM and may result in a statistically and clinically significant reduction of self-reported HRQoL.

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