Quality of Life May Predict Life Span of Lung Cancer Patients

In September 2009, the Journal of Thoracic Oncology published a study concerned with the fact that people`s pretreatment life quality can predict how much they can survive with their ordeal. The research focused on patients suffering from non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) in an advanced stage.

Even though studies have been made regarding this matter, the end results varied and researchers could not manage to get to a final conclusion. On these grounds, Doctor Yingwei Qi from the Mayo Clinic Rochester in Minnesota along with a team of scientists supervised a research made on a number of 420 lung cancer patients comprising six clinical trials.

Prior to this study, the known fact were that the average life span of people suffering from advanced stages of non-small cell lung cancer ranged between six and twelve months. Only a third of these cases managed to live pass the predicted one year period.

Doctor`s Yingwei Qi team studied the quality of life of the patients prior to the beginning of treatment. Measuring patients` self-assessment of their lives using the Spitzer Uniscale, scientists could observe that for lung cancer suffering people that scored low on this scale, the risk of mortality was double compared to those who scored high.

Taking into account this discovery, it can be said that doctors all over the world would be able to predict and make good use of the Spitzer Uniscale in order to forecast the life span of patients suffering from advanced stages of non-small cell lung cancer. As Doctor Qi states: “This research shows conclusively that, even when we adjust for variables, how patients with advanced stage non-small cell lung cancer rate their quality of life with the Uniscale tool prior to treatment can predict their overall survival rate”.

The importance of this study is even greater due to the fact that non-small cell lung cancer represents almost 80% of all lung cancer illnesses all over the United States.