Patients with lung cancer experience considerable symptom burden, which can affect patients? quality of life(QOL). The study aimed to investigate the association between QOL scores at diagnosis and survival of lung cancer patients.

This study of lung cancer investigated patients at seven medical centers of St. Mary's hospitals in Korea who filled out a quality of life questionnaire from 2017 to 2020. The study analyzed the impact of five functional (physical, role, emotional, cognitive, and social functioning) and nine symptom (fatigue, nausea and vomiting, pain, dyspnea, insomnia, appetite loss, constipation, diarrhea, and financial difficulties) scales on the patients' survival and used a Cox proportional hazards model to evaluate their prognostic value.

1,297 of lung cancer patients enrolled in the study and found that female gender, younger age, being a never smoker, early stage cancer, higher physical and emotional functioning were positive predictors of survival. On subgroup analysis, higher physical and emotional functioning were favorable factors in both early and advanced stage cancer. Fatigue, pain, insomnia, and financial difficulties were negatively related to emotional functioning, while fatigue, pain, dyspnea, and financial difficulties negatively affected physical functioning.

Assessing the physical and emotional functioning scales of the QOL questionnaire at the time of diagnosis can help physicians predict the survival of lung cancer patients.