2002 Volume 14 Issue 4 Pages 233-238
Introduction: Evaluation of QOL in cancer patients is an important theme. However, we do not have an established method to assess QOL in cancer patients during radiotherapy in Japan. We evaluated both the changes of QOL and the factors affecting QOL in radiotherapy patients.
Materials and Methods: Three hundred and fifty-five cancer patients, who filled in a questionnaire at the beginning, middle, and end of radiotherapy between 1998 and 2001, were studied. Weused“The QOL Questionnaire for Cancer Patients Treated with Anticancer Drugs (QOL-ACD)” devisedby Kurihara et al, the Ministry of Health and Welfare. The QOL Questionnaire had five categories: physical activity, physical condition, mental state, social interaction, and face scale. The total score, sum of the score of five categories, were established synthetically (maximum score is 110).
Results: The mean of total QOL scores were 75.8, 77.6, and 78.2 at the beginning, middle, and end of radiotherapy respectively. Patients with symptoms related to cancer had apparent improvement of QOL score. Patients receiving chemotherapy had a decreased QOL score at the end of radiotherapy. The score of physical condition was reduced improvement.
Conclusions: It was suggested that radiotherapy could be performed without losing QOL of cancer patients, including older patients. However, patients receiving chemotherapy and those with head and neck cancer may lose their QOL, therfore, we should treat such patients carefully.
