The chronic pain due to cancer is the leading cause of low QOL. Surely, the degree of pain is evaluated only in individual and the relatively, we physicians should keep in mind that tumor-progression free survival or total survival period are not at all the goal of anti-tumor chemotherapy. Instead, it is important how to make longer the survival period with high QOL, especially as Dr. Prakash kumar asked, in terms of tumor-induced pain. It has recently been uncovered that VEGF signal blockage is effective for the attenuation of cancer pain. Activation of VEGF receptor type 1 (VEGFR1) expressed in the post-synaptic neruons of peripheral sensory nerves stimulate several signal pathways composed of PLC-gamma, Src and PI3K. In particular, Src signal pathway provokes the activation of TRPV1, one of the ion channels related to pain. The remodeling of neurons in the tumor tissue is the target of therapy in the near future.   

Article A Functional Role for VEGFR1 Expressed in Peripheral Sensory...

Dear Sir,

To answer your question, I would like to direct your attention to 2 points (EORTC QoL C30 and other modules are translated to different languages; I attached the list of available languages translations). 2nd important point; in my opinion it would be optimal to combine it with Elderly specific module EORTC QLQ-ELD14 as a minimum. You can add disease specific modules if needed.

Regarding the point of illiteracy; indeed health care providers can read it for the patients and record it accordingly.

  For more information; I would recommend you to consult the official website of the EORTC QoL group (attached).

Best Regards

Emad

http://groups.eortc.be/qol/

To add to Emad's comprehensive answer, EORTC is a disease-specific QoL measure and is recommended for cancer patients.  However there may be stronger disease-specific QoL measures for different types of cancer.  For example, the EPIC questionnaire is recommended for prostate cancer patients. (See http://www.ichom.org/medical-conditions/localized-prostate-cancer/)

If the purpose of your analysis is to compare QoL of cancer patients with other disease cohorts, then a generic QoL instrument like the EQ-5D or SF-36 is necessary. For older cohorts there is also work being undertaken in University of Birmingham by Professor Jo Coast on well-being measures which capture overall quality of life in sub-groups of populations at different points in their life.  Check out the ICECAP-O measure (http://www.birmingham.ac.uk/research/activity/mds/projects/HaPS/HE/ICECAP/ICECAP-O/index.aspx)

As Emad suggests, most instruments can be tailored for delivery by trained professionals when patients have trouble with literacy.