Metastatic Breast Cancer

The overall aim of this project is to help improve the Health Related Quality of Life (HRQOL) of metastatic breast cancer (MBC) patients. There is currently an urgent and unmet need for specific tools to aid in the evaluation of HRQOL in MBC and this project aims to address these needs by developing a comprehensive EORTC questionnaire for assessing the HRQOL of this group. The new module will be used in conjunction with EORTC QLQ-C30 and will provide better measurement of the quality of life issues experienced by women with MBC. Interviews will be conducted with patients from several centres across Europe, guiding the development process in a patient centred way.

The project is being coordinated from the University of Leeds UK by Professor Galina Velikova and involves multiple collaborating centres from both the QLG and BCG. This is an exciting project that looks to help improve the quality of life of women with MBC and highlight the collaborative nature of the EORTC.

European centres have confirmed their collaboration in the project. The project has generated a lot of interest from across both the Quality of Life Group and the Breast Cancer Group. A systematic review is currently in progress to extract the relevant QOL issues highlighted in the literature.

This project aims to complete Phases 1 – 3 of the module development process over the course of the next two years.

This project aims to help us understand how secondary breast cancer and its treatment impacts the lives of those living with the condition. The current tools for measuring the impact secondary breast cancer has on a persons life, lack the ability to capture the specific issues relevant to the condition.  Therefore, in this project, we aim to develop a new tool that can be used to better measure these issues. To achieve this, patients with secondary breast cancer will be involved throughout the development process and will be given the opportunity to provide feedback on the issues they feel are most relevant to their condition. This patient involvement will help shape the design of the questionnaire and will be used to ensure the included items are specific to women with secondary breast cancer. This is an exciting project that we hope can help improve the quality of life on women with secondary breast cancer.