P06.15 * LONG TERM QUALITY OF LIFE OF ELDERLY PEOPLE IN DIFFERENT AGE GROUPS AFTER MENINGIOMA SURGERY

Abstract

OBJECTIVE: Surgery is usually the standard treatment for intracranial meningiomas in patients of all ages. The incidence of meningiomas increases progressively with age. Considering the fact, that the median age for the diagnosis of meningiomas is 65 years, general health condition, morbidity and mortality rates as well as the postoperative outcome regarding quality of life should carefully be noted in advance. It remains still a controversial topic, if meningioma resection should be performed in higher ages under weighing up the risks and benefits of the intervention. There have actually been only few studies which have investigated the health related quality of life in the postoperative course. The results of these studies are yet controversial and there is a need for further investigations regarding the postoperative health related long term quality of life. Furthermore to this point of time there have been no studies that compare the impairments of the HRQOL after meningioma resection in different age groups. METHODS: We analyzed the health related quality of life of 133 elderly patients ranging from 55 to 84 years who underwent surgical meningioma resection between 2004 and 2010. 50 of them were male and 83 female (3M: 5F). The median age was 67.3 ± 7.4 years. The average time between surgery and interview was 3.8 ± 2.5 years. Six different age groups each compromising 5 years of age were established. Patients were interviewed with the SF36 questionnaire and compared to general population. RESULTS: We found significant lower levels of physical function, vitality, social role function, mental health, general health perception and significant higher levels of pain when comparing the older groups (especially from 75 to 79 years) with younger patients from 55 to 59 years of age. The physical component summary showed a steadily and stepwise decline of levels from younger patients to older patients even with significant differences. CONCLUSION: In total, former studies have shown that meningioma surgery in elderly patients can be performed under higher but acceptable morbidity and mortality rates compared to younger patients. However, our findings suggest that meningioma resection affects long term quality of life especially in higher ages and should be a substantial part of the surgery decision making process in advance.