EORTC-QLQ-LC13 Clinical Workflow

Introduction

The European Organisation for Research and Treatment of Cancer (EORTC) Quality of Life Questionnaire‐Lung Cancer 13 (QLQ‐LC13) was the first module to be used in conjunction with the EORTC Core Quality of Life Questionnaire (EORTC QLQ‐C30) and was published in 1994 [1]. The LC13, as its name suggests, covers 13 typical symptoms of lung cancer patients, such as coughing, pain, dyspnea, sore mouth, peripheral neuropathy, and hair loss. In clinical research, the QLQ-LC13 is considered a standard instrument for measuring the quality of life (QL) of patients with lung cancer [2]

The EORTC-QLQ-LC13 flow contains the EORTC-QLQ-LC13 questionnaire and associated calculation. After form submission, the EORTC-QLQ-LC13 calculation is executed automatically. It's easy to extend this flow with conditional logic based on the interpretation of the EORTC-QLQ-LC13 calculation.

EORTC-QLQ-LC13 questionnaire

Questions and Scoring

The lung cancer module incorporates one multi-item scale to assess dyspnoea, and a series of single items assessing pain, coughing, sore  mouth, dysphagia, peripheral neuropathy, alopecia, and haemoptysis [3]. As shown in this table:

Scale:

• Dyspnoea
• Coughing
• Haemoptysis
• Sore mouth
• Dysphagia
• Peripheral neuropathy
• Alopecia
• Pain in chest
• Pain in arm or shoulder
• Pain in other parts

Remarks:

• “Item range” is the difference between the possible maximum and the minimum response to individual items. All items are scored 1 to 4, giving range = 3
• The dyspnoea scale should only be used if all three items have been answered. Some respondents ignore question 5 because they never climb stairs; in this case, the score for the dyspnoea scale would be biased if it were based upon the other two items. Hence if item 5 is missing then items 3 and 4 should be used as single-item scores.

References

[1] Bergman B, Aaronson NK, Ahmedzai S, Kaasa S, Sullivan M. The EORTC QLQ-LC13: a modular supplement to the EORTC Core Quality of Life Questionnaire (QLQ-C30) for use in lung cancer clinical trials. EORTC Study Group on Quality of Life. Eur J Cancer. 1994;30A(5):635-642. doi:10.1016/0959-8049(94)90535-5\
[2] Salvo N, Hadi S, Napolskikh J, Goh P, Sinclair E, Chow E. Quality of life measurement in cancer patients receiving palliative radiotherapy for symptomatic lung cancer: a literature review. Curr Oncol. 2009;16(2):16-28. doi:10.3747/co.v16i2.376\
[3] https://drive.google.com/file/d/1GwwqedEOj6pfzzSCU1ihrQbxABL3db3M/view?usp=sharing page 20