Cancer Drug Improves Survival Without Impacting Quality of Life

Pazopanib shows promise in soft tissue sarcoma patients.

A treatment for soft tissue sarcoma was able to extend survival without hindering quality of life during a recent trial.

The fact that pazopanib improved progression-free survival without affecting health-related quality of life was considered a meaningful result by researchers. The results of the study, however, indicate the application of pazopanib for soft tissue sarcoma is complicated.

"This is one of the few randomized clinical trials with quality of life studies undertaken in metastatic soft-tissue sarcoma in such a robust manner,” co-author Dr. Andrew Bottomley said. “It's so important to better understand what treatment options we can offer to these patients, and we hope our results shed more light onto a field that in the past had remained much in the dark."

This study evaluated a variety of outcome assessments beyond efficacy and toxicity, including cost effectiveness and patient-reported outcomes.

"One of the intentions of this study was to investigate if, by delaying tumor progression, pazopanib would improve the quality of life of these sarcoma patients,” lead author Corneel Coens said. “An ambitious project as this is a relative rare and mixed patient population with little prior data about quality of life. This study informs us about the treatment balance between improving outcome at the cost of side effects."