• J. Thorac. Cardiovasc. Surg. · Oct 2010

    Health-related quality of life in long-term esophageal cancer survivors after potentially curative treatment.

    • Ewout F W Courrech Staal, Johanna W van Sandick, Harm van Tinteren, Annemieke Cats, and Neil K Aaronson.
    • Department of Surgical Oncology, The Netherlands Cancer Institute-Antoni van Leeuwenhoek Hospital, Amsterdam, The Netherlands. e.courrech@nki.nl
    • J. Thorac. Cardiovasc. Surg. 2010 Oct 1;140(4):777-83.

    ObjectiveClinical outcomes have been investigated extensively in studies of esophageal cancer treatment. Less is known about long-term health-related quality of life outcomes. The aim of this study was to assess a range of health-related quality of life outcomes in patients with esophageal cancer treated with potentially curative intent at least 1 year earlier.MethodsBetween January 1995 and December 2007, 163 consecutive patients with cancer of the esophagus underwent a potentially curative treatment. All patients with a minimal follow-up of 1 year and without tumor recurrence were eligible. Questionnaires included the European Organization for Research and Treatment of Cancer core questionnaire (QLQ-C30), the European Organization for Research and Treatment of Cancer esophageal cancer-specific questionnaire (QLQ-OES18), and additional questions concerning survivorship issues.ResultsThirty-seven patients met the inclusion criteria, of whom 36 completed the questionnaires. Twenty-one patients had received neoadjuvant therapy followed by surgery, 9 patients had undergone surgery only, and 6 patients had chemoradiation only. Median survival was 54 (range, 16-162) months. In general, patients reported better health-related quality of life than a reference sample of patients with esophageal cancer, but somewhat compromised health-related quality of life compared with a reference sample of individuals from the general population. Although some symptoms continued to persist, patients' overall evaluation on their treatment, employment status and finances, body weight and image, and survivorship issues was positive.ConclusionsPatients who survive 1 year or more after potentially curative treatment for esophageal cancer can lead satisfactory lives. The results of this study can be used when informing patients with esophageal cancer about the long-term effects of treatment.Copyright © 2010 The American Association for Thoracic Surgery. Published by Mosby, Inc. All rights reserved.

      Pubmed     Full text   Copy Citation     Plaintext  

      Add institutional full text...

    Notes

     
    Knowledge, pearl, summary or comment to share?
    300 characters remaining
    help        
    You can also include formatting, links, images and footnotes in your notes
    • Simple formatting can be added to notes, such as *italics*, _underline_ or **bold**.
    • Superscript can be denoted by <sup>text</sup> and subscript <sub>text</sub>.
    • Numbered or bulleted lists can be created using either numbered lines 1. 2. 3., hyphens - or asterisks *.
    • Links can be included with: [my link to pubmed](http://pubmed.com)
    • Images can be included with: ![alt text](https://bestmedicaljournal.com/study_graph.jpg "Image Title Text")
    • For footnotes use [^1](This is a footnote.) inline.
    • Or use an inline reference [^1] to refer to a longer footnote elseweher in the document [^1]: This is a long footnote..

    hide…