Quality of life research in childhood cancer: The time is now

✍ Scribed by Gregory H. Reaman; Gerald M. Haase

• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 1996
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 280 KB
• Volume: 78
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0008-543X
• DOI: 10.1002/(sici)1097-0142(19960915)78:6<1330::aid-cncr23>3.0.co;2-0

✦ Synopsis

he past three decades of clinical research in pediatric oncology T have resulted in dramatic improvements in the survival of children with cancer in nearly every diagnostic subgroup, most notably acute leukemia and Wilms' tumor.'.* These efforts have been accomplished, in large part, through collaborative, multicenter, randomized trials utilizing survival, relapse free survival, event free survival, or disease free survival as appropriate study endpoints. With improved survival outcomes, new endpoints for continuing research efforts must assess the quality of survival associated with specific treatment regimens in the increasing numbers of survivors of childhood ~ancer.3.~ The identification of alternate study endpoints, means of their assessment, and methods of their incorporation into ongoing and future clinical trials requires the joint efforts of clinicians from all disciplines involved in the treatment of children with cancer. Also, input from social scientists and mental health professionals involved in both the evaluation and approaches to improvements in health-related quality of life is necessary. For this reason, in January 1995,