Edited by
Joris C. Verster
S. R. Pandi-Perumal
David L. Streiner

2008

Had you looked up “quality of life” (QOL) in Index Medicus prior to 1975, your search would have been fruitless. Although the term was most likely first introduced by Karnofsky in 1949 within the realm of chemotherapy for cancer patients (1), it was not used as a key word in Index Medicus for another 26 years. Since that time, there has been an exponential growth in the number of articles about QOL.