title: Quality of life in non-melanoma skin cancer.
abstract: Basal cell carcinoma and squamous cell carcinoma are the most common malignancies and are classified under the umbrella of non-melanoma skin cancer (NMSC). NMSC exerts a small but appreciable decrement in quality of life (QOL). The impact posed may arise from the tumour itself or as a result of treatment, and through symptoms, functional limitations, cosmetic burden and auxiliary considerations such as cost and disturbance to the activities of daily living. Researchers have evaluated this burden using a variety of outcome measures including generic, dermatology-specific and disease-specific instruments. The skin cancer index represents a promising disease-specific patient-reported outcome measure in this setting. To overcome some of the constraints inherent to disease-specific instruments, and to allow comparisons with other diseases, utility weightings have been developed. Utility weightings represent a cardinal measure for a specific health status and are established through methods such as the standard gamble, willingness-to-pay and time trade-off, and have also been employed to generate utility weightings for NMSC. Utilities are becoming increasingly important as a means of comparing health states across medicine and are of particular importance from a health-care policy perspective as they are used for resource allocation. The small but definite impact on the individual's QOL posed by NMSC should be a clinical consideration for physicians and it should be recognised by researchers as a potential outcome measure.
authors.affiliation: University of Sydney, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia.
authors.forename: Charles
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Gaulin
authors.forename: Deshan F
authors.initials: DF
authors.lastname: Sebaratnam
authors.forename: Pablo
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Fernández-Peñas
mesh_terms: D002280:Basal Cell Carcinoma / Q000523:psychology*; D002294:Carcinoma, Squamous Cell / Q000523:psychology*; D006801:Humans; D011788:Quality of Life; D012878:Skin Neoplasms / Q000523:psychology*; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires
keywords: Skindex; basal cell carcinoma; quality of life; skin cancer index; squamous cell carcinoma; time trade-off; utility; utility weighting; willingness to pay