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Quality of Life Measurements: Any Value for Clinical Practice?

  • Head and Neck Cancer (L Licitra, Section Editor)
  • Published:
Current Treatment Options in Oncology Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Opinion statement

Quality of life measurements are well established in cancer clinical trials. In daily clinical practice, where cancer patients often suffer from disease-specific symptoms and report unmet needs regarding their treatment, these measurements are not systematically implemented. The systematic (often computer-based) assessment of quality of life in daily cancer care has shown to be beneficial for patient-physician communication, symptom management, shared decision-making, and in creating a learning health system. Unfortunately, to date, routine electronic quality of life assessments are usually limited to large cancer facilities. Patient and physician barriers as well as barriers from the administrative side in particular are currently hindering the implementation of these systems into the broad spectrum of clinical cancer care. Cost-effectiveness analyses of existing systems, the inclusion of all relevant stakeholders, and clear implementation guidelines are required to introduce quality of life measurements in clinical cancer practice to improve the treatment of cancer survivors and to create a health care system that addresses all their disease-related needs.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Medical Biostatistics, Epidemiology and Informatics (IMBEI), University Medical Center Mainz, Obere Zahlbacher Straße 69, 55131, Mainz, Germany

    Matthias Büttner MSc & Susanne Singer PhD

  2. Clinic of Otolaryngology, Head and Neck Surgery, University of Leipzig, Leipzig, Germany

    Veit Zebralla MD & Andreas Dietz MD

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  1. Matthias Büttner MSc
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  2. Veit Zebralla MD
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  3. Andreas Dietz MD
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  4. Susanne Singer PhD
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Correspondence to Matthias Büttner MSc.

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Susanne Singer has received compensation for Pfizer for service as a consultant. The other authors declare that that they have no conflict of interest.

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This article does not contain any studies with human or animal subjects performed by any of the authors.

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This article is part of the Topical Collection on Head and Neck Cancer

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Büttner, M., Zebralla, V., Dietz, A. et al. Quality of Life Measurements: Any Value for Clinical Practice?. Curr. Treat. Options in Oncol. 18, 30 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11864-017-0470-4

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11864-017-0470-4

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