Impact of the Extent of Thyroidectomy on Quality of Life in Differentiated Thyroid Cancer Survivors: A Propensity Score Matched Analysis.

Abstract

PurposeAs most thyroid cancer patients survive for more than ten years, it has become increasingly important to understand whether the different surgery types have any effect on the quality of life (QoL) of patients.Patients and MethodsUsing observational data from head and neck surgery at the Sichuan Cancer Hospital in China, three scoring methods – sum scoring, domain-based scoring and IRT-based scoring, were employed to measure the QoL in differentiated thyroid cancer (DTC) patients and a propensity score matched analysis performed to explore the impact of surgery type on QoL as measured by the Treatment of Cancer Quality of Life core Questionnaire version 3.0 (EORTC QLQ-C30) and a disease-specific health-related quality of life questionnaire (THYCA-QoL).ResultsNo statistically significant patient QoL differences were found between the two surgery types regardless of which questionnaire was used and which scoring method was used (n{rm{ATE}} = - 0.400n, np = 0.834n using the EORTC QLQ-C30 and the sum scoring; n{rm{ATE}} = - 0.4491n, np = 0.807n using the EORTC QLQ-C30 and the domain-based scoring; and n{rm{ATE}} = - 0.442n, np = 0.114n using the EORTC QLQ-C30 and the IRT-based scoring; n{rm{ATE}} = - 0.827n, np = 0.586n using the THYCA-QoL and the sum scoring; n{rm{ATE}} = - 1.692n, np = 0.406n using the THYCA-QoL and the domain-based scoring; and n{rm{ATE}} = - 0.032n, np = 0.908n using the THYCA-QoL and the IRT-based scoring).ConclusionThis study confirmed that the surgery type (hemithyroidectomy or total thyroidectomy) for DTC patients did not appear to influence their general QoL.