Quality of life issues in the management of ovarian cancer

In patients with ovarian cancer, quality of life is defined by the severity of the disease. In early stage disease, patients focus on the long-term effects of therapy, whereas in late-stage disease, symptom management is paramount. The chemotherapeutic agents used to combat ovarian cancer have a wide range of adverse effects, the management of which is key to ensuring a patient's quality of life. Patient-specific considerations are also important in maintaining quality of life. However, patient preferences are hard to define and harder to predict, so that it is important to assess each patient individually. A large number of assessment tools have been developed, but many are too cumbersome to administer regularly and provide information that cannot be incorporated into patient care plans. The Functional Assessment of Cancer Therapy questionnaire for ovarian cancer (FACT-O) is a notable exception to this group. The FACT-O is a short questionnaire grouped by logical categories that can be completed by most patients without assistance within 5 minutes. Furthermore, the FACT-O allows patients to weight each category of questions based on the categories' perceived importance to the quality of the patients' lives. These two factors allow the FACT-O to be used to institute management decisions on the level of both the individual patient and the institution.