Measuring Health-related Quality of Life with the Cancer-specific QLU-C10D

This dissertation focuses on assessing psychometric evidence on the validity, sensitivity, and responsiveness of a cancer-specific health utility instrument, the QLU-C10D. This instrument is designed for oncological studies, making the relevant patient experience available for health economic decision-making processes. Based on the cancer-specific nature of the QLU-C10D, it was expected that patient-reported assessments with this instrument would show higher sensitivity and responsiveness to change than generic utility instruments, which are typically used to measure quality of life for economic evaluations of health-related interventions.
The first paper of this dissertation presents a review of previously published evidence of the QLU-C10D's psychometric properties and a synopsis of its user manual. Furthermore, current questions and limits concerning its practical use for economic evaluations of health interventions are discussed.
In addition, two papers present analyses of retrieved data from international multi-centre cancer clinical trials, one with a sample of patients with glioblastoma and the other studied data from four lung cancer trials. These papers aimed to investigate statistical parameters of content and construct validity in the respective patient populations. Moreover, indices for relative sensitivity and responsiveness were calculated to compare the QLU-C10D with the most widely used generic utility instrument. These papers are part of a total of seven studies with samples of various cancer types, which systematically investigated content and construct validity based on a comprehensive methodical procedure.
Results of this dissertation highlight that the analysis of the samples of various cancer types and review of previously published studies support the evidentiary basis of the validity of the QLU-C10D in many cancer populations.