Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2023 Aug;32(8):2127-2135.
doi: 10.1007/s11136-022-03335-4. Epub 2023 Jan 17.

The current use of the EORTC QLQ-NMIBC24 and QLQ-BLM30 questionnaires for the assessment of health-related quality of life in bladder cancer patients: a systematic review

E Rammant  1   2 , L Fox  3 , K Beyer  3 , N K Aaronson  4 , R Chaloner  3 , S De Padova  5 , F Liedberg  6 , L M Wintner  7 , K Decaestecker  8 , V Fonteyne  8 , N Perdek  3 , H Wylie  3 , J W F Catto  9 , T M Ripping  10 , B Holzner  7 , M Van Leeuwen #  4 , M Van Hemelrijck #  3 ; EORTC Quality of Life Group
Affiliations

The current use of the EORTC QLQ-NMIBC24 and QLQ-BLM30 questionnaires for the assessment of health-related quality of life in bladder cancer patients: a systematic review

E Rammant et al. Qual Life Res. 2023 Aug.

Abstract

Purpose: Investigating the use of the EORTC bladder cancer (BC) modules by evaluating: (a) study contexts/designs; (b) languages/countries in which the modules were administered; (c) their acceptance by patients/investigators; and (d) their psychometric properties.

Methods: A systematic review was performed with studies from 1998 until 20/10/2021 in five databases. Articles/conference abstracts using the EORTC-QLQBLM30 (muscle invasive BC) and the EORTC-QLQNMIBC24 (previously referred to as QLQ-BLS24; non-muscle invasive BC) were included. Two authors independently screened titles/abstracts/full-texts and performed data extraction.

Results: A total of 76 eligible studies were identified. Most studies included the BLM30 (n = 53), were in a urological surgery context (n = 41) and were cross-sectional (n = 35) or prospective (n = 30) in design. The BC modules were administered in 14 languages across 19 countries. Missing data were low-moderate for all non-sex related questions (< 1% to 15%). Sex-related questions had higher rates of missing data (ranging from 6.9% to 84%). Most investigators did not use all scales of the questionnaires. One validation study for the original BLS24 led to the development of the NMIBC24, which adopted a new scale structure for which good structural validity was confirmed (n = 3). Good reliability and validity was shown for the NMIBC24 module, except for malaise and bloating/flatulence scales. Psychometric evidence for BLM30 is lacking.

Conclusion: These results provide insight into how the EORTC BC quality of life modules could be further improved. Current work is ongoing to update the modules and to determine if the two modules can be combined into a single questionnaire that works well in both the NMIBC and MIBC settings.

Keywords: Bladder cancer; EORTC; Health-related quality of life; Measurement; Questionnaire development.

PubMed Disclaimer

References

    1. Mason, S. J., Downing, A., Wright, P., Hounsome, L., Bottomley, S. E., Corner, J., Richards, M., Catto, J. W., & Glaser, A. W. (2018). Health-related quality of life after treatment for bladder cancer in England. British Journal of Cancer, 118(11), 1518–1528. - PubMed - PMC - DOI
    1. Van Hemelrijck, M., Sparano, F., Josephs, D., Sprangers, M., Cottone, F., & Efficace, F. (2019). Patient-reported outcomes in randomised clinical trials of bladder cancer: An updated systematic review. BMC Urology, 19(1), 86. - PubMed - PMC - DOI
    1. Mason, S. J., Catto, J. W. F., Downing, A., Bottomley, S. E., Glaser, A. W., & Wright, P. (2018). Evaluating patient-reported outcome measures (PROMs) for bladder cancer: A systematic review using the COnsensus-based Standards for the selection of health Measurement INstruments (COSMIN) checklist. BJU International, 122(5), 760–773. - PubMed - PMC - DOI
    1. Prinsen, C. A. C., Mokkink, L. B., Bouter, L. M., Alonso, J., Patrick, D. L., de Vet, H. C. W., & Terwee, C. B. (2018). COSMIN guideline for systematic reviews of patient-reported outcome measures. Quality of Life Research, 27(5), 1147–1157. - PubMed - PMC - DOI
    1. https://qol.eortc.org/ . (Accessed Nov 2021) (2021).

Publication types

LinkOut - more resources