Abstract
Background: We assessed whether the presence and severity of common cancer symptoms are associated with the health utility score (HUS) generated from the EQ-5D (EuroQol Research Foundation, Rotterdam, Netherlands) in patients with cancer and evaluated whether it is possible pragmatically to integrate routine hus and symptom evaluation in our cancer population. Methods: Adult outpatients at Princess Margaret Cancer Centre with any cancer were surveyed cross-sectionally using the Edmonton Symptom Assessment System (ESAS) and the EQ-5D-3L, and results were compared using Spearman correlation coefficients and regression analyses. Results: Of 764 patients analyzed, 27% had incurable disease. We observed mild-to-moderate correlations between each ESAS symptom score and the HUS (Spearman coefficients: −0.204 to −0.416; p < 0.0001 for each comparison), with the strongest associations being those for pain (R = −0.416), tiredness (R = −0.387), and depression (R =−0.354). Multivariable analyses identified pain and depression as highly associated (both p < 0.0001) and tiredness as associated (p = 0.03) with the HUS. The ability of the ESAS to predict the HUS was low, at 0.25. However, by mapping ESAS pain, anxiety, and depression scores to the corresponding EQ-5D questions, we could derive the HUS using partial ESAS data, with Spearman correlations of 0.83–0.91 in comparisons with direct EQ-5D measurement of the HUS. Conclusions: The HUS derived from the EQ-5D-3L is associated with all major cancer symptoms as captured by the ESAS. The ESAS scores alone could not predict EQ-5D scores with high accuracy. However, ESAS-derived questions assessing the same domains as the EQ-5D-3L questions could be mapped to their corresponding EQ-5D questions to generate the HUS, with high correlation to the directly measured HUS. That finding suggests a potential approach to integrating routine symptom and HUS evaluations after confirmatory studies.