Quality of Life Outcomes in Treatments for Symptomatic Uterine Fibroids: A Systematic Literature Review

Abstract

Study Objective To conduct systematic literature review (SLR) on quality of life (QoL) outcomes of treatments for symptomatic uterine fibroids (UF). Design A systematic review was conducted using MEDLINE, Embase, PubMed and Google Scholar to identify studies published since database inception and May 1, 2020. Prospective and retrospective studies with at least ten patients were considered eligible if they included treatment of symptomatic UF patients and reported QoL measures using the uterine fibroid symptom quality of life (UFS-QoL) questionnaire. The baseline, post baseline and change from baseline (CFB) UFS-QoL scores for overall and subscales were extracted for each time point reported in the study. Setting N/A Patients or Participants N/A Interventions N/A Measurements and Main Results Of 746 search results, 64 references for 60 studies were included: 42 prospective studies, 9 retrospective studies, 3 post hoc analyses and 6 other studies. A total of 8,047 patients were included, with a median study size of 66 patients. The baseline and post-baseline median health-related quality of life (HRQoL) scores were 46.6 and 82.0, respectively (Mean scores were 49.8 and 82.4 respectively). The median improvement in HRQoL score was 34.2 (Mean 31.8, N=7,261 pts). The baseline and post-baseline median symptom severity scores (SSS) were 55.9 and 22.3, respectively (Mean scores were 54.0 and 21.3 respectively). The median improvement in SSS was -32.6 (Mean -31.7, N=7,380 patients). Similar range of improvements were observed for other subscales of UFS-QoL. Conclusion To our knowledge, this study is one of the first and the most comprehensive systematic review on quality of life outcomes of treatments for symptomatic UF patients. An on-going meta-analysis is warranted to provide a more quantitative overview of QoL outcomes.