Better Quality and More Robust Instruments Are Needed for Patient-Reported Quality-of-Life Surveys in Thyroid Cancer Survivors

Abstract

BackgroundThyroid cancer survivors are often younger, healthier, and live longer than other cancer survivors. Despite increases in detection, thyroid cancer mortality has remained stable over the past four decades, at 0.5 out of 100,000, bringing quality-of-life issues to the forefront in these patients (1). Patient-Reported Outcome Measures (PROMs) assess health-related quality of life (HR QoL) with regard to multiple aspects of a disease process (physical, psychological, social, and spiritual) as perceived by patients and/or proxies. Psychometric and utility/preference-based tools have been developed to assess these impacts on various diseases. This study aimed to assess the type and quality of HR QoL instruments administered to the population of thyroid cancer survivors (2). MethodsThis systematic review evaluated studies administering HR QoL instruments to adult thyroid cancer survivors using the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-analyses (PRISMA) method. Full-text studies published between 1990 and 2018 in PubMed and Embase that evaluated thyroid cancer patients' quality of life with validated HR QoL instruments were included. Inclusion