Longitudinal Health-related Quality of Life Among Individuals Considering Treatment for Stage I Non-Small-Cell Lung Cancer

Because of improvements in screening, there is an increasing number of patients with early-stage non-small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC) who are making treatment decisions. Among patients with suspected stage I NSCLC, we evaluated longitudinal patient-centered outcomes (PCOs) and the association of changes in PCOs with treatment modality, stereotactic body radiotherapy (SBRT) compared with surgical resection. We conducted a multisite, prospective, observational cohort study at seven medical institutions. We evaluated minimum clinically important differences of PCOs at four time points (during treatment, 4-6 wk after treatment, 6 mo after treatment, and 12 mo after treatment) compared with pretreatment values using validated instruments. We used adjusted linear mixed models to examine whether the association between treatment and European Organization for Research and Treatment of Cancer global and physical quality-of-life (QOL) scales differed over time. We included 127 individuals with stage I NSCLC (53 surgery, 74 SBRT). At 12 months, approximately 30% of patients remaining in each group demonstrated a clinical deterioration on global QOL from baseline. There was a significant difference in slopes between treatment groups on global QOL (-12.86; 95% confidence interval [CI], -13.34 to -12.37) and physical QOL (-28.71; 95% CI, -29.13 to -28.29) between baseline and during treatment, with the steeper decline observed among those who underwent surgery. Differences in slopes between treatment groups were not significant at all other time points. Approximately 30% of patients with stage I NSCLC have a clinically significant decrease in QOL 1 year after SBRT or surgical resection. Surgical resection was associated with steeper declines in QOL immediately after treatment compared with SBRT; however, these declines were not lasting and resolved within a year for most patients. Our results may facilitate treatment option discussions for patients receiving treatment for early-stage NSCLC.