Quality of life in patients with oropharyngeal carcinoma after primary surgery and postoperative irradiation

Objective: To assess quality of life in patients with oropharyngeal carcinoma after primary surgery and postoperative irradiation. Study Design: Retrospective chart review and patient response to the Short Form 36 (SF-36) Health Survey and the European Organisation for Research and Treatment of Cancer (EORTC) QLQ-C30 and QLQ-H&N35 questionnaires. Setting: A tertiary care university hospital. Results: One hundred sixty-nine patients with oropharyngeal carcinoma underwent primary surgery followed by postoperative irradiation between January 1997 and February 2002. Eighty-eight disease-free survivors were identified in September 2002 and included in this study. The questionnaires were completed by 34 patients (39% completion rate). Median follow-up was 2.3 years (range 0.5-4.9 years). In oropharyngeal carcinoma patients, five scales of the SF-36 showed significantly reduced scores in comparison with the normal German population: physical functioning, role functioning-physical, general health, social functioning, and role functioning-emotional. Posttreatment scores from the literature fell within the 95% confidence interval of our data except one out of fifteen scales of the EORTC QLQ-C30 questionnaire and six out of eighteen scales of the EORTC QLQ H&N35 questionnaire. The comparison of our data with data from the reviewed literature produced similar results. Conclusions: General quality of life was reduced in our oropharyngeal carcinoma patients. Primary surgery and postoperative irradiation demonstrated similar results in different studies.