Docetaxel with prednisone or prednisolone for the treatment of ...

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Appendix 10
TABLE 54 Distribution of age, ratings of QoL and number of patients taking strong opioids for patients who died of prostate cancer,
patients who died of other causes and patients still alive
visual analogue scale (VAS), providing a ratingscale
measurement, is included.
The two parts of BPI included in the
questionnaire comprised four questions related to
the severity of pain and seven questions assessing
the pain interference with daily function. The
eight specially designed questions were related to
the effectiveness of pain treatment.
A pain management index was determined by
subtracting the rating of worst pain on the BPI
questionnaire from a score corresponding to the
strongest prescribed analgesic as reported by the
respondent. The strongest prescribed analgesic
score was defined as 0 for no analgesic, 1 for nonopioids,
2 for opioids for moderate pain and 3 for
opioids severe pain. Based on the worst pain as
stated in the BPI questionnaire, the pain score
(0–10) was categorised as 0 for no pain (rating 0),
1 for mild pain (rating 1–3), 2 moderate pain
(rating 4–7) and 3 for severe pain (rating 8–10). A
negative score indicates under-treatment of the
pain.
Among the 1237 patients who responded to the
questionnaire, 66 died of prostate cancer before
the end of 2000. The patients’ characteristics are
presented in Table 54.
During the last 12 months, the average of QoL of
the 66 patients who died of prostate cancer was a
utility value of 0.54. There were only minor nonsignificant
differences in HRQoL between those
who died of prostate cancer (0.538 ± 0.077) and
those who died of other causes (0.564 ± 0.067).
The men who died of prostate cancer were found
Died of prostate Died of other Still alive
cancer causes 31 December 2000
No. 66 100 1076
Age (years ± SD) 76 ± 10 82 ± 6 77 ± 8
EQ-5D score (± 95% CI) 0.538 ± 0.077 0.564 ± 0.067 0.770 ± 0.015
EuroQOL VAS (± 95% CI) 54.0 ± 5.2 53.2 ± 4.6 70.0 ± 1.2
No. of patients receiving strong opioids 17 (25.8%) 3 (3.0%) 15 (1.4%)
TABLE 55 Quality of life
16–12 months 12–8 months 8–4 months 4–0 months
EuroQol VAS (± 95% CI) 0.57 ± 0.06 0.57 ± 0.06 0.53 ± 0.06 0.45 ± 0.09
EQ-5D score (± 95% CI) 0.58 ± 0.08 0.58 ± 0.1 0.52 ± 0.08 0.46 ± 0.12
to report significantly worse pain in the last week
than men who died of other causes.
A distribution of ratings’ QoL among patients
who died of prostate cancer was also categorised
for their last 16 months of life, as shown in
Table 55.
Four values were presented, corresponding to four
equal periods of the remaining patient lifetime,
16–12, 12–8, 8–4 and 4–0 months
The results in Table 55 demonstrate that the
patients’ prostate cancer QoL appeared to
decrease during the last year of life.
In conclusion, the QoL in the population of men
with prostate cancer decreases during the final
year of life, especially during the final 4 months.
The QoL of prostate cancer patients in the last
week could be improved with an optimised pain
treatment.
Authors: Volk et al. (2004) 78
Title: Preferences of husbands and
wives for outcomes of prostate
cancer screening and treatment
In this study 168 male patients (mean age =
56.4 years) who had a partner or spouse were
recruited to investigate the preference for the
outcomes of prostate cancer screening and
treatment and QoL with metastatic prostate
cancer. Utility assessments were obtained using
three phases.