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Annals of Oncology 2009 20(Supplement 6):vi51-vi58; doi:10.1093/annonc/mdp255
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© The Author 2009. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the European Society for Medical Oncology. All rights reserved.
The online version of this article has been published under an open access model. users are entitle to use, reproduce, disseminate, or display the open access version of this article for non-commercial purposes provided that: the original authorship is properly and fully attributed; the Journal and the European Society for Medical Oncology are attributed as the original place of publication with the correct citation details given; if an article is subsequently reproduced or disseminated not in its entirety but only in part or as a derivative work this must be clearly indicated. For commercial re-use, please contact journals.permissions@oxfordjournals.org

This article appears in the following Annals of Oncology issue: Melanoma: Perspectives of the Global Melanoma Task Force [View the issue table of contents]

Articles

A systematic review of health-related quality of life in cutaneous melanoma

D. Cornish1, C. Holterhues1, L. V. van de Poll-Franse2, J. W. Coebergh3 and T. Nijsten4,*

1 Department of Dermatology, Erasmus University Medical Center, Rotterdam
2 Comprehensive Cancer Centre South, Eindhoven, The Netherlands Center of Research on Psychology in Somatic Diseases (CoRPS), Tilburg University, Tilburg
3 Department of Public Health, Erasmus University Medical Center, Rotterdam, and Comprehensive Cancer Centre South, Eindhoven
4 Department of Dermatology, Erasmus University Medical Center, Rotterdam, The Netherlands

* Correspondence to: Tamar Nijsten, Department of Dermatology, Erasmus University Medical Centre, Rotterdam, The Netherlands; Tel: + 31-10-461031019; Fax: +31-10-4633822; E-mail: t.nijsten{at}erasmusmc.nl

Melanoma can be considered an emerging chronic disease that may considerably affect patients’ lives. The authors systematically reviewed the available literature on health-related quality of life (HRQOL) and melanoma. Of reviews and the selected studies, reference lists were hand-searched. The quality of the eligible studies was appraised based on 14 previously published criteria. Of the 158 abstracts, 44 articles were appraised, resulting in 13 selected studies written in English (published between 2001 and 2008). Most studies assessed patients from specialised centres with varying, but relatively advanced, disease stages. The most commonly used instruments were the SF-36 and EORTC QLQ-C30. Recently, a melanoma-specific HRQOL questionnaire [FACT-Melanoma (FACT-M)] was introduced for clinical trial purposes. It showed that approximately one-third of melanoma patients experienced considerable levels of distress, mostly at the time of diagnosis and following treatment. Systemic therapies affected HRQOL negatively in the short term, but to a lesser extent in the long term. Health status and patients’ psychological characteristics are associated with higher levels of HRQOL impairment. The authors found that the impact of melanoma on patients’ HRQOL is comparable to that of other cancers. Accurately assessing HRQOL impairment in melanoma patients is pivotal, as it may affect disease management, including therapy and additional counselling, future preventive behaviour and perhaps even prognosis.

Key words: cutaneous, health status, health status indicators, melanoma, quality of life (QOL), skin, survival analysis


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