Quality-of-Life Assessment for Small Cell Lung Carcinoma

Nearly every patient suffers from pain related to SCLC and/or pleural effusion. SCLC is associated with a significantly worse quality of life than most other cancers.

SCLC has both an excellent and dismal prognosis regardless of treatment intensity. However, in patients with limited disease who respond to chemotherapy, the ultimate cure rate is up to 85 %. It is imperative that patients with an underlying cancer are informed of this reality, and that the potential benefits of innovative therapies are realized.

CT and PET images are helpful for distinguishing pulmonary nodules from other radiographic patterns. Lymph node lesions in patients with localized small cell lung carcinoma can be diagnosed on CT and PET images.

SCLC is a very malignant cancer that mainly affects older adults, typically those in their sixties and 70s. It primarily arises in the lungs, but also in many other organs including the stomach (gastric SCLC), liver, bone marrow, brain and prostate gland(prostate SCLC). Small cell carcinoma accounts for about 3% of lung cancer cases worldwide. This aggressive cancer generally has a mean survival of five to 20 months after presentation, but with prolonged survival in rare cases. The prognosis for this disease is improving as more precise methods of diagnosis are refined, treatments become more established such as combination chemotherapy.

Given its high prevalence and mortality rate, SCLC is an important public health concern on a world on a local basis. The increased incidence of SCLC in recent years is mainly attributed to cigarette smoking and secondhand smoke. Thus, further studies are warranted to develop an effective preventive strategy for SCLC.

In the U.S., SCLC occurs in about 2 cases per 100,000 new adults per year. The incidence of SCLC decreases as age increases. The incidence should be interpreted with caution as age-standardized incidence rate is higher than age-adjusted incidence rate.

Only the following two considerations seem relevant for evaluating a possible clinical trial for patients with SCLC: a) whether they can receive, appreciate and tolerate the study; b) how much burden of the clinical trial treatment can be put on them; furthermore, only for patients whose disease is considered to be manageable in terms of current standards should clinical trials be accepted.

Quality-of-life assessment provides an important aspect to clinical evaluation with [palliative care]. Results from a recent clinical trial, it was demonstrated that patients and their families benefited from an investigation of their global quality of life with standardized and validated assessment tools.

[Most of patients will develop [small cell lung cancer](https://www.withpower.com/clinical-trials/small-cell-lung-cancer) (SCLC) in their lifetime with the average lifespan being around 2 years] while the average age for developing small cell lung carcinoma is around 61 years. However, not all patient will develop SCLC in their lifetime; so the chances of developing small cell lung carcinoma depends on many factors, such as the chances of developing SCLC with the overall lifetime and the chance of developing SCLC within their lifetime.\n\n[The lifetime chance of developing small cell lung carcinoma is 0.1% if one lives to age of 90, 0% if one lives to age of 50 and 80% if they live until age of 40.

Assessment of QOL should not be limited to health-related QOL alone. The impact of QOL on physical function should be evaluated along with the QOL measures which may improve a QOL score. The importance of QOL assessment in lung cancer patients is discussed.

Patients with SCLC were more likely to have a history of tobacco smoking than control subjects. This association is plausible and confirms the hypothesis that exposure to carcinogens increases the risk of an SCLC diagnosis. More research is warranted to determine the extent to which cigarette smoke directly causes or contributes to the development of lung carcinoma.