Quality of life in ICON7: need for patients' perspectives : The Lancet Oncology

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Quality of life in ICON7: need for patients' perspectives : The Lancet Oncology


"Stark and coworkers' findings about quality of life are highly relevant to clinicians treating women with ovarian cancer, particularly in view of the absence of overall survival benefits in the study population. Is the noted quality-of-life decrement during both primary and maintenance bevacizumab treatment outweighed by the roughly 2 month improvement in progression-free survival? This question is especially difficult to answer because ICON7 did not assess quality of life at the time of disease progression. Although quality of life was assessed at 36 months, these data are not reported by Stark and colleagues."

"It is up to the oncology community to establish where the balance of benefit and harm with bevacizumab lies, as expanded upon by Stark and colleagues. Women with ovarian cancer, however, will ultimately bear the burden of interpretations of such trials, and thus should be asked to assess the inherent tradeoffs implicated in new treatments."