Prospective Comparative Study of Quality of Life in Bladder Cancer Patients Undergoing Cystectomy or Bladder Preservation

Abstract

Health-related Quality of life (HRQOL) may be decisive when different treatments yield comparable survival outcomes. We compared QOL in patients undergoing radical cystectomy with ileal conduit (RCIC) or bladder preservation (BP) with (chemo)radiotherapy for bladder cancer. Patients with histological diagnosis of bladder cancer, stage T1-T4, N0-N1, M0 with a minimum follow-up of 6 months from the last treatment intervention (RCIC or BP) and alive without disease at the time of QOL assessment were eligible for inclusion. After ethics committee approval, two HRQOL instruments were translated, validated and administered: Bladder cancer index (BCI) for bladder cancer-specific HRQOL, which includes 36 items under three domains - bladder, bowel and sexual function and the EORTC QLQ C30 which includes 30 items under three domains - functional, symptom and global health. The mean QOL scores across various domains and specific questions were compared between the two treatment groups using the independent t-test. Of the 104 patients enrolled, 56 had RCIC, and 48 received BP, and included 95 (91.3%) males. The median time from treatment completion to QOL assessment was 22 months (IQR 10-56). The median age for the entire cohort was 62 years (IQR 55-68), 65.5 years (IQR 55-71) in BP and 59.5 years (IQR 55-66) in RCIC. Overall, mean BCI urinary scores and bowel scores were high in both groups, with no significant difference in function or bother subdomains between the two groups (Table 1). Overall, BCI sexual scores were low in both the groups but significantly better after BP (BPmean 56.9, RCICmean 41.5, p = 0.01). Mean scores for sexual function BPmean 38.4 and RCIC mean 25 p (0.07) and sexual bother BPmean 81 RCICmean 62 (p 0.02) subdomains. There was no significant difference in EORTC QOL outcomes in functional (BPmean 91.4, RCICmean 88.7 p 0.23), symptom (BPmean 89.8, RCICmean 89, p = 0.68) and global health scale (BPmean 76.8, RCICmean 78.5, p = 0.69) in both groups. On question-wise assessment, the ability to perform an exercise (BPmean 94.2, RCICmean 85, p = 0.06) and urinary leakage at night time (BPmean 91.7, RCICmean 77.6, p = 0.01) were better in the BP group, while scores for blood in the urine (BPmean 89.1, RCICmean 97, p = 0.05) were better in the RCIC group compared to BP. Overall, QOL was good in both groups in the urinary and bowel domains while it was low in the sexual domain. However, bladder preservation performed significantly better in the sexual domain than RCIC.