In the past decade, increasing attention has been given to more systematic and quantitative ways of evaluating explicitly the impact of diseases and medical interventions on quality of life. A substantial part of this research pertained to the field of cancer where cure is not always possible and treatments are mostly intrusive. This paper will address two broad issues. The first part focuses on the general issues related to the evaluation of quality of life, such as its concept, the purpose and design of the study and assessment criteria, particularly in the context of a cancer clinical trial. The second part focuses specifically on quality-of-life issues in urinary tract cancer.