Association between performance status and Quality of life in advance stages non-small cell lung cancer patients

Objective: The relation between performance status and quality of life (QoL) among advanced non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) patients remains uncertain. This study aimed to assess the correlation between performance ability (indicated by the Eastern Cooperative Oncology Group performance score - ECOG) to QoL among individuals diagnosed with advanced NSCLC, uti-lizing the EORTC QLQ-LC13 tool. Methods: A total of 170 patients diagnosed with NSCLC (TxNxM1) with periodically chemo-therapy treatment at Hanoi Oncology hospital were invited to the study. The ECOG score and EORTC QLQ-LC13 were assessed by a dietitian. Results: The highest proportion (64.1%) of subjects with ECOG score = 1. The most frequent symptoms in EORTC QLQ-LC13 categories were mild coughing, shortness of breath, and chest pain and hair loss was the most unwanted side effect of treatment. Poor performance status re-lated with decrease in QoL (p< 0.05). Conclusions: Performance status correlated significantly with QoL categories, suggests that improving aspects of quality of life sufficiently can enhance the performance abilities of pa-tients with advanced stage NSCLC. Keywords: lung cancer, malnutrition, quality of life, PG-SGA, QLQ-C13