A systematic review examining factors influencing health related quality of life among melanoma cancer survivors

Eighty percent of melanomas are diagnosed at a localised stage, when they are highly curable. Their survival rate induces long follow-up periods, transforming melanoma into a chronic disease and patients' health-related quality of life (HRQoL). Understanding which patient characteristics are associated with poor HRQoL should allow a more personalised management of their HRQoL. Hence, we propose a systematic review for this purpose. Systematic literature searches were performed in three different electronic databases: PubMed, Web of Science and the Cochrane Library. Only studies published in English after 2005 until June 2016 and exploring HRQoL over a period of at least one year were considered. 10 articles were identified from seven different studies, representing a total of 4246 patients. All were observational: six were cross-sectional and only one was prospective. Several patient characteristics associated with HRQoL were identified. Women tend to have lower psychological HRQoL than men. Age was generally associated with variations in HRQoL levels, but there was no consistency across studies. Positive associations between marital status or social interactions and psychological subscales were highlighted by a few studies. Finally, the stage related severity of prognosis at initial diagnosis was systematically associated with worse HRQoL levels (either psychological, physical or global). Several patient characteristics could be identified in melanoma studies that were associated with HRQoL levels. However, these relations were not consistent across studies. Such findings highlight the current lack of empirical data available. Further evidence is needed on HRQoL factors in melanoma survivors.