Jane Weeks, MD, MSc

Pharmacoeconomics and outcomes research are two new sciences that are beginning to affect the practice of oncology. As cost awareness in cancer care becomes acute, practicing oncologists must understand how to apply these sciences to their practices. This publication represents the proceedings of the symposium, Economics and Quality of Life in Oncology Clinical Practice, which was held on November 19, 1997, on the occasion of the EORTC meeting during The First European Conference on the Economics of Cancer. The presentations at the symposium provided an overview of some studies that have begun to explore the variety of activities comprising outcomes assessment, and how such data can be used to help deliver high quality patient care in a cost-conscious environment.

Outcomes assessment describes a variety of activities, including classic clinical trials with quality of life and cost end points, observational studies examining the outcomes of treatment in the course of routine clinical care, and the process of managing patterns of care in clinical practice. These activities share important common features, including an emphasis on quality of life and economic outcomes, an explicit consideration of the importance of patient characteristics in determining outcomes, and a broad definition of what constitutes cancer care.

Quality-adjusted survival as a measure of the effectiveness of medical interventions captures the tradeoffs between length and quality of life that are often involved in choosing between alternative treatment strategies.