Postoperative Quality of Life of Patients with Colon Cancer according to the Extent of Curative Colon Resection

Surgery is the mainstay of treatment for colorectal cancers. However, the effect of resection extent on patient’s function and quality of life (QoL) should be clearly assessed before surgery.

A retrospective study conducted on all consecutive patient with stage I-III colon cancer who underwent surgery at Department of Colorectal Surgery from January 2014 to January 2018. The EORTC QLQ-C30 was completed to assess functional capacity and quality of life in all patients free of recurrence.

The study population consisted of 57 male (45%) and the mean ± SD of age was 57.7 ± 13.2 years. Most patients (54%) underwent total colectomy. The mean ± SD of interval between operation date and filling questionnaire date was 41.8 ± 6.9. There was no statistically significant difference between this interval period and type of surgery (p value: 0.76). However, it was revealed that as this period gets longer the score is higher (α: 2.3, CI: 2.1-3.9, p value=0.001). Multivariate analysis showed that after adjusting for T and N stage, age and gender, the type of surgical resection is an independent risk factor of having lower global health status(OR:3.2, CI:2.9-7.6, p-value=0.03), financial difficulties(OR:1.4, CI:1.1-3.6, p value=0.022) and higher rates of fatigue (OR:2.4, CI:1.8-4.6, p value=0.006).

It was found that as the larger segment of the colon is resected the worsening of global health status happens. So, the post-operative challenges toward coping with new functional capacity of resected bowel and QoL should be discussed with patient prior to surgery.