Immune Checkpoint Inhibitors

The increased use of immune checkpoint inhibitors for patients with cancer has brought benefits to many patients. It is also apparent that treatment with immune checkpoint inhibitors can induce various side-effects. Given the unique side-effect profile of immune checkpoint inhibitors, patients receiving these therapies may have unique health-related quality of life concerns. Hence, the main aim of this project is to establish the important health-related quality of life issues in cancer patients receiving immune checkpoint inhibitors. Following this, we will determine a strategy for the measurement of health-related quality of life in such patients that fits with existing EORTC health-related quality of life measurement tools.

Following the completion of Phase 1 and 2 of the work, we have identified key health-related quality of life issues that our study data have identified as important to measure. We have produced a provisional item list of recommended items to use to measure health-related quality of life of patients receiving immune checkpoint inhibitors, which is available from the Quality of Life Group’s Item Library. We plan to take this work further in Phase 3, to conduct additional validation analyses and refine the item list, ensuring that our measurement strategy works across cancer types and settings.

Phase 1 and 2 have been completed and a provisional item list has been produced, which is to be made available in the EORTC Quality of Life Group Item Library.

We plan to conduct a phase 3 study to further investigate the provisional item list produced in phases 1 and 2.

Increasing numbers of cancer patients are receiving a type of immunotherapy treatment called immune checkpoint inhibitors. We know that immune checkpoint inhibitors can have many different side-effects on patients, which could affect their quality of life. This project therefore to develop and test new health-related quality of life questionnaires specifically for patients receiving immune checkpoint inhibitors, to ensure that all health-related quality of life aspects are covered in these patients.