Sophie Merrick, Cancer Research UK Clinical Research Fellow at UCL Innovative Clinical Trials Unit, Medical Oncology Registrar at UCL Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, shared on LinkedIn:
“Great to see this policy review from Common Sense Oncology and the EORTC – European Organisation for Research and Treatment of Cancer on improving the evaluation and reporting of quality-of-life outcomes in adjuvant cancer trials.
My main takeaways:
- Report the proportion of patients experiencing clinically meaningful deterioration, not just mean change from baseline between trial arms. This information is easier for patients and clinicians to interpret and is more useful for informed decision-making.
- Measure and report the duration of deterioration, not simply whether it occurred.
- Continue collecting quality-of-life data after treatment discontinuation to understand longer-term effects.
These may sound like subtle methodological issues, but they can fundamentally change how we interpret treatment burden and discuss the risks and benefits of adjuvant therapy with patients.”
Title: Reporting health-related quality of life in randomised clinical trials evaluating adjuvant systemic therapy: recommendations of Common-Sense Oncology and the European Organisation for Research and Treatment of Cancer
Authors: Ian F. Tannock, Michael Brundage, Christopher M. Booth, Nathan I. Cherny, Corneel Coens, Elizabeth A. Eisenhauer, Jan Geissler, Johannes M. Giesinger, Bishal Gyawali, Sjoukje F. Oosting, Gregory R. Pond, Jaap C. Reijneveld, Enrique Soto-Perez-de-Celis, Michelle Tregear, Winette T. A. van der Graaf, Brooke E. Wilson, Madeline L. Pe
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