[The quality of life and cancer]. / Calidad de vida y cáncer.

Quality of life has been one of the main goals of medicine during the past years. With the increase of chronic degenerative diseases and the stability of the life expectancy at birth, we are beginning to think that it is not only important the number of years that we live, but as well the number of years that we live free of discapacities. On the other hand, the increase in the survival rate due to the advance of the biotechnology, as it happens with cancer, lead us to consider several psychosocial aspects neglected a few years ago.