Prospective assessment of quality of life in long‐term ovarian cancer survivors

Abstract

The objective of our study was to compare prospectively the QoL in long-term ovarian cancer survivors with short-term survivors and to explore discriminating variables between short-term and long-term survival. Thirty-three patients were included, 22 died within 5 years post diagnosis and 11 survived beyond 10 years. QoL data were collected pre-treatment (baseline), 1-year post diagnoses and for long-term survivors 10 years post-treatment using the EORTC QLQ-C30. At baseline, there was no difference in terms of FIGO stage, residual tumor and adjuvant chemotherapy. Significantly, more short-term survivors (96%) had intra operative ascites as compared to long-term survivors (55%) (p = 0.01). Before treatment, short-term survivors had clinically significantly lower QoL scores on the physical functioning (mean 75.45) and role functioning scale (mean 68.94) compared to long-term survivors (mean 68.94 and 84.85, respectively). They also reported higher levels of symptoms. One year post-diagnosis, QoL scores were comparable in most domains. Long-term survivors had a significantly better global QoL but more insomnia. Emotional functioning and global QoL/health status improved significantly from baseline to 1-year post-diagnosis and remained relatively stable at the 10-year follow-up. The presence of intra operative ascites and a supporting social network were identified as significant variables that discriminated between short-term and long-term survival. Compared to a reference sample, long-term survivors showed similar QoL scores but more dyspnoea. Although ovarian cancer patients do not belong to the most prevalent survivor populations, we found that long-term survivors have QoL scores similar to females without a history of cancer.