REVIEW ARTICLE
Health-Related Quality of Life Assessment in Patients with Myelodysplastic Syndromes: Evidence from Randomized Clinical Trials
Johannes M. Giesinger1, Giorgio La Nasa2, *, Francesco Sparano3, Matthias Angermeyer4, Emanuela Morelli2, Olga Mulas2, Fabio Efficace3, Giovanni Caocci2
Article Information
Identifiers and Pagination:
Year: 2021Volume: 17
Issue: Suppl-1, M8
First Page: 307
Last Page: 314
Publisher ID: CPEMH-17-307
DOI: 10.2174/1745017902117010307
Article History:
Received Date: 14/1/2021Revision Received Date: 2/9/2021
Acceptance Date: 18/11/2021
Electronic publication date: 31/12/2021
Collection year: 2021
open-access license: This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Public License (CC-BY 4.0), a copy of which is available at: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode. This license permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
Abstract
Myelodysplastic syndromes (MDS) are characterized by ineffective hematopoiesis and blood cytopenia with a variable risk of progression to acute myeloid leukemia. The main goal of therapy for the large majority of patients is to improve health-related quality of life (HRQoL). Its rigorous assessment is now recommended in international MDS guidelines. Our review provides an overview of HRQoL results from randomized controlled trials (RCTs) in MDS patients. The literature search undertaken in PubMed identified 10 RCTs with HRQoL endpoints (all secondary) published between August 2008 and September 2020. These RCTs have helped to better understand the impact of therapies from the patient perspective and have generated valuable information that can be used to further support clinical decisions. However, the number of RCTs in MDS patients, including HRQoL endpoints, is still low. Given the importance of symptom relief and HRQoL improvement in the treatment of MDS patients, the assessment of the patient perspective in future RCTs is highly recommended to keep expanding the knowledge of the impact of new MDS therapies.