Longitudinal Analysis of the Health-related Quality of Life in Glioma Patients

Aims of the study The main goal of this study is to perform a large-scale, prospective and long-term analysis of the HRQOL in patients diagnosed with glioma and to set up a database which contains general patient characteristics, tumor information, treatment strategy and follow-up data of each included patient. This large-scale database will allow the investigator to investigate several relevant research questions in a well-documented group of glioma patients. Methodology HRQOL is a multidimensional concept covering physical, psychological and social domains as well as symptoms induced by the disease and the treatment. Currently there is no single gold standard tool to measure HRQOL, and several valid measures of HRQOL in brain tumor patients are available. In this study the investigator will use the EQ-5D questionnaire to report patient's HRQOL. The EQ-5D is widely used and has been validated in many different patient populations. It has been designed so that patients can describe the extent to which they have a problem in each of the five dimensions of health: mobility, self-care, usual activities, pain/discomfort and anxiety/depression The timing of the HRQOL questionnaires will depend on whether a patient will be diagnosed with either a LGG or a HGG. Moreover, as the current treatment strategies for LGG patients and for relapsed HGG patients are highly variable, the investigator scheduled the HRQOL measurements not in function of the treatment, but rather in function of the classical, standard-of-care patient follow-up (either 3 or 6 monthly). Missing data When there are missing data for some patients, the question arises as to whether patients with missing data differ from those who returned completed forms. As a consequence, missing data presents problems in the analysis and the interpretation of the results. Hence, the amount of missing data should be minimized. A regular check on missing data will be performed by the CTA. In case the HRQOL form was not completed by the included patient, the patient will be contacted by phone or e-mail and he/she will be asked to provide an answer to the different questions of the HRQOL questionnaire in order to avoid missing data. In case the patient is unable to complete the HRQOL questionnaire, the CTA will report the reason for non-completion in the database.