Endpoints in cancer clinical trials: is there a need for measuring quality of life?

A review of the possible reasons to measure quality of life in cancer patients as well as reasons not to measure it is presented. These are considered in the context that standard endpoints already exist in cancer clinical trials and have served us well. Quality-of-life assessments might best be utilized in trials in which survival differences between treatments are expected to be small, which is frequently the case. Although more data are required to establish properly the true value of quality-of-life measurement in cancer clinical trials, such measurements should be encouraged.