TY - JOUR
T1 - The clinical importance of quality-of-life scores in patients with skull base tumors
T2 - A meta-analysis and review of the literature
AU - Amit, Moran
AU - Abergel, Avraham
AU - Fliss, Dan M.
AU - Gil, Ziv
N1 - Funding Information:
Acknowledgments This research was supported by the Legacy Heritage Biomedical Science Partnership Program of the Israel Science Foundation (No. 1680/08), the Israel Cancer Association (grant donated by Ellen and Emanuel Kronitz in memory of Dr. Leon Kronitz No. 20090068), the Israeli Ministry of Health (No. 3-7355), the Weizmann Institute—Sourasky Medical Center Joint Grant, the Tel Aviv Sourasky Intramural Grant, the ICRF Barbara S. Goodman Endowed Research Career Development Award (2011-601-BGPC), and a grant from the US–Israel Binational Science Foundation (No. 2007312) to Z.G. Esther Eshkol is thanked for her editorial assistance.
Copyright:
Copyright 2012 Elsevier B.V., All rights reserved.
PY - 2012/4
Y1 - 2012/4
N2 - Health-related quality of life (QOL) outcomes are frequently used by clinicians, patients, and researchers for assessing the effectiveness of an intervention. Small differences in QOL may be statistically significant but their clinical relevance remains undefined. The smallest changes in QOL scores of the anterior skull base surgery questionnaire (ASBS-Q) which could be considered clinically significant have not been delineated. Here we present a meta analysis and review of the literature of 273 patients undergoing skull base tumor resection. The minimal clinically important difference (MCID), defined as "the smallest change in QOL which patients perceive as beneficial", was calculated using several statistical approaches. The MCID of the ASBS-Q was 0.4 (8%, score range 1-5). Various other instruments for QOL estimations revealed a larger range of MCID score (between 6.2%-17.5%) for the different QOL domains. The statistical analyses reveal that histology (benign vs malignant), time elapsed from surgery (< or ≥6 months), and surgical approach (open vs endoscopic) have significant clinical impact on different QOL domains. This paper brings level 1b evidence which demonstrates the importance of MCID as an adjunct for estimation of QOL in patients undergoing skull base surgery.
AB - Health-related quality of life (QOL) outcomes are frequently used by clinicians, patients, and researchers for assessing the effectiveness of an intervention. Small differences in QOL may be statistically significant but their clinical relevance remains undefined. The smallest changes in QOL scores of the anterior skull base surgery questionnaire (ASBS-Q) which could be considered clinically significant have not been delineated. Here we present a meta analysis and review of the literature of 273 patients undergoing skull base tumor resection. The minimal clinically important difference (MCID), defined as "the smallest change in QOL which patients perceive as beneficial", was calculated using several statistical approaches. The MCID of the ASBS-Q was 0.4 (8%, score range 1-5). Various other instruments for QOL estimations revealed a larger range of MCID score (between 6.2%-17.5%) for the different QOL domains. The statistical analyses reveal that histology (benign vs malignant), time elapsed from surgery (< or ≥6 months), and surgical approach (open vs endoscopic) have significant clinical impact on different QOL domains. This paper brings level 1b evidence which demonstrates the importance of MCID as an adjunct for estimation of QOL in patients undergoing skull base surgery.
KW - Anterior skull base surgery questionnaire
KW - Base of skull
KW - Head and neck cancers
KW - Minimal clinically important difference
KW - Quality of life
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U2 - 10.1007/s11912-012-0222-3
DO - 10.1007/s11912-012-0222-3
M3 - Review article
C2 - 22278770
AN - SCOPUS:84860863873
SN - 1523-3790
VL - 14
SP - 175
EP - 181
JO - Current Oncology Reports
JF - Current Oncology Reports
IS - 2
ER -