Assessment of quality of life in thyroid cancer patients using the EORTC thyroid-specific questionnaire: a prospective cross-sectional study.

Abstract

Many studies on the quality of life (QoL) among the thyroid cancer survivors have shown conflicting results. This may be since many of these studies have not used thyroid cancer-specific questionnaires. In our study we have translated the EORTC THY-34, validated and served it in a cross-sectional study to the assess the QoL among thyroid cancer patients free of disease during their routine follow-up. Patients were categorized based on the duration from treatment completion, ATA risk stratification, treatment received, number of RAI sessions and thyroid function status during analysis. Overall, 220 thyroid cancer survivors were included in this study. In general, in the EORTC QLQ-C30, the global QoL of thyroid cancer patients were good with a mean score of 72.99. The highest score was that for social functioning (89.55). In the EORTC-THY34 all the patients in the cohort had relatively lower scores(on symptom scales). Overall, there was no difference in the QLQ-C30 and THY-34 QoL with respect to any of the categorization mentioned above. However, our thyroid cancer patients QoL scores were better and/or comparable to those in published literature and they were also better or comparable to the QoL of the general population those were available in literature. There was no difference in the QoL scores based on various categories. To better understand the quality of life of these patients a prospective longitudinal study with baseline values and values at regular intervals might give us a better insight.