Assessment of quality of life in cancer patients with special regard to quality of life after pelvic exenteration

Over the past decade, the more efficient therapies have led to an increased number of longterm survivors in cancer disease. For this reason, an increasing attention has been focused on the quality of life (QoL) in these patients.
QoL evaluation is recently recognized as an end point in randomized clinical trials leading to the change in therapeutic paradigm from specific cure to overall care. Pelvic exenteration became a potentially curative treatment strategy for advanced recurrent pelvic malignancies and the increasing number of survivors mandate for quality of life research.
Although the evaluation of tumor response, disease-free interval, and overall survival remains central in cancer clinical research, quality of life considerations have emerged as a component of the assessment process.