Editor’s Note: We have read with considerable interest the recent article by St. Germain et al entitled “Reporting of Health-related Quality of Life Endpoints in National Cancer Institute-supported Cancer Treatment Trials” as well as the accompanying editorial by our longtime colleague David Cella. This is indeed an era where health-related quality of life correlative studies are of great interest to the journal. While typically, cooperative groups do not allow publication secondary data analysis, and as Dr. Cella points out, HRQoL is almost always considered a secondary endpoint, these data are invaluable. They are ever more important in an era of spiraling cancer treatment costs, precision targeted therapy and immunotherapy, and longer survivorship. That is one reason why we at Cancer must stay open to receiving more such articles in this relatively new and important space. We therefore join Dr. Cella in his enthusiasm for these revealing studies and formally encourage the co-submission of trial primary outcomes and HRQoL manuscripts to Cancer.
Keywords: National Cancer Institute; clinical trials; health-related quality of life; patient-reported outcome; publications.