CLINICS 2010;65(12):1247-1251 CLINICAL SCIENCE DOI:10.1590/S1807-59322010001200005 Reliability of the Brazilian version of the Functional Assessment of Cancer Therapy-Lung (FACT-L) and the FACT-Lung Symptom Index (FLSI) Franceschini Juliana, Jose´ R. Jardim, Ana Luisa Godoy Fernandes, Se´ rgio Jamnik, Ilka Lopes Santoro Respiratory Diseases Division – Federal University of S a˜o Paulo, Botucatu, Sa˜ o Paulo, Sa˜ o Paulo, Brazil OBJECTIVES: The purpose of this study was to assess the reliability of the Brazilian version of the Functional Assessment of Cancer Therapy-Lung (FACT-L) with the FACT-Lung Symptom Index (FLSI) questionnaire. INTRODUCTION: The assessment of quality of life in patients with lung cancer has become an important evaluative endpoint in current clinical trials. For lung cancer patients, one of the most common quality of life tools available is the FACT-L. Despite the amount of data available regarding this questionnaire, there are no data on its performance in Brazilian lung cancer patients. METHODS: The FACT-L with the FLSI questionnaire was prospectively administered to 30 consecutive, stable, lung cancer outpatients at baseline and at 2 weeks. RESULTS: The intraclass correlation coefficient between test and retest for the FACT-L ranged from 0.79 to 0.96 and for the FLSI was 0.87. There was no correlation between these questionnaire dimensions and clinical or functional parameters. CONCLUSIONS: The Brazilian version of the FACT-L with FLSI questionnaire is reliable and is quick and simple to apply. This instrument can now be used to properly evaluate the quality of life of Brazilian lung cancer patients. KEYWORDS: Quality of life; Lung cancer; Questionnaires; Reproducibility of results; Validation studies. Franceschini J, Jardim JR, Fernandes ALG, Jamnik S, Santoro IL. Reliability of the Brazilian version of the Functional Assessment of Cancer Therapy- Lung (FACT-L) and the FACT-Lung Symptom Index (FLSI). Clinics. 2010;65(12):1247-1251. Received for publication on August 12, 2010; First review completed on August 23, 2010; Accepted for publication on September 7, 2010 E-mail: ilka@pneumo.epm.br Tel.: 55 11 5576-4238 INTRODUCTION Lung cancer has become a disease of great global impact and remains the leading cause of death from cancer in the world.1 As smoking and environmental pollution cannot be controlled in the short term, the incidence of lung cancer continues to increase, especially in females.2,3 In Brazil, the estimate for 2010 is approximately 18 new cases per 100 000 men and 10 per 100 000 women, corresponding to 17 800 and 9 930 new cases of lung cancer among men and women respectively.4 Advances in lung cancer therapy have been improving survival rates, although the prognosis remains poor. The 5- year survival rate is around 15% in developed countries1 and 10% in Brazil.4 Therefore, the impact of both disease and treatment on the health and psychosocial functioning of these patients should be considered.5 In this context, quality of life assessment and the analysis of the main symptoms that lead to functional capacity limitation have become Copyright 2010 CLINICS – This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http:// creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/) which permits unrestricted non- commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. issues of utmost importance in the evaluation of lung cancer patients. However, in Brazil, there are few studies that evaluate this aspect of the disease, mainly because of the lack of specific tools adapted to and reproducible for the Brazilian Portuguese language. Several instruments are currently used to evaluate the quality of life in patients with lung cancer. The Functional Assessment of Cancer Therapy-Lung (FACT-L) was gener- ated by the Functional Assessment of Chronic Illness Therapy (FACIT) group. It is a specific, multidimensional question- naire widely used in clinical studies.6-9 Moreover, the FACT- Lung Symptom Index (FLSI), which is a brief measure involving five common symptoms in lung cancer patients, can be applied in combination with the FACT-L or alone. Although the FACT-L is currently used in Brazil, mainly in international multicenter trails, there is no study assessing the reliability of this questionnaire in the Brazilian Portuguese language. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to evaluate the reproducibility of the FACT-L and the FLSI for Brazilian lung cancer patients. METHODS A convenience sample comprising 30 patients with lung cancer was recruited from the outpatient lung cancer clinic 1247