Posted by Michael Wonder on 05 Oct 2018
Evaluating progression-free survival as a surrogate outcome for health-related quality of life in oncology
1 October 2018 - Progression-free survival has become a commonly used outcome to assess the efficacy of new cancer drugs. However, it is not clear if delay in progression leads to improved quality of life with or without overall survival benefit.
Of 35 960 records screened, 52 articles reporting on 38 randomised clinical trials involving 13 979 patients across 12 cancer types using 6 different HRQoL instruments were included. The mean (SD) difference in median progression-free survival (PFS) between the intervention and the control arms was 1.91 (3.35) months.
The researchers failed to find a significant association between PFS and HRQoL in cancer clinical trials.
