Quality of life in differentiated thyroid cancer

Abstract

This study assesses quality of life in a group of self-selected patients who attended the patient-doctor thyroid cancer forum and, although accepting there is a sampling bias, the conference provided an opportunity to assess the quality of life of patients with differentiated thyroid cancer. The study has found that the average quality of life in this group of patients is lower than that of the UK population, and lower than that of patients with breast, colorectal and prostate cancer. A large number of these patients suffer with fatigue, and depression requiring anti-depressants and/or counselling.

What the thyroid cancer patient wants to know: ThyCa survey by the American Head and Neck Society Endocrine Surgery Section

“…12 Patient expectations may affect postoperative satisfaction and health-related QOL in patients undergoing treatment, 13 and contribute to the diminished QOL experienced by survivors. [2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9]11 The informational and psychosocial support needs of patients with thyroid cancer specifically merit further study. 11,20,26,27 In this study, we analyzed patient-reported feedback from English-speaking thyroid cancer survivors regarding their treatment experiences to determine the types of informational resources and support that could potentially be useful for this specific population in the pretreatment setting.…”

“…1 Compared to age-and sex-matched controls, thyroid cancer survivors report worse quality of life (QOL), including clinically lower levels of psychosocial and physical functioning and significantly more physical and emotional symptoms. [2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9] Indeed, QOL in thyroid cancer is similar or lower to that of other cancers with worse survival. 8 Patients with thyroid cancer that experience severe financial crisis requiring bankruptcy face earlier mortality.…”

Satisfacción de la atención en pacientes con cáncer de tiroides atendidos en el Servicio de Medicina Nuclear del Hospital Nacional Guillermo Almenara Irigoyen, 2018

“…La calidad de vida en pacientes con cáncer diferenciado de tiroides, parece tener un comportamiento relacionado al sexo femenino, donde la relación mujer: varón corresponde a 6:1 (4) , resultados similares al presente estudio, en el que esta patología predomina en el género femenino. Por otra parte, la edad de los pacientes en estudios similares está un rango entre los 13 a los 72 años, lo cual evidencia que este cuadro se puede presentar a partir de los 13 años de edad.…”

“…El aumento global en el diagnóstico de cáncer de tiroides es una consecuencia un mayor empleo de las imágenes tiroideas, y la consiguiente identificación de tumores tiroideos. Asimismo, recientes estudios evidencian que diversos factores, como antecedentes étnicos, estado de yodemia y la mayor exposición a la radiación, pueden tener un papel en el incremento de su incidencia (4) . Por otra parte, en el manejo del cáncer diferenciado de tiroides, la cirugía es aceptada como el pilar fundamental del tratamiento; pero durante la etapa posquirúrgica se indica el uso de radioyodo en casos seleccionados como medida terapéutica (tratar la enfermedad persistente conocida), adyuvante (eliminar micrometástasis sospechada aunque no confirmada) o ablativo (eliminar remanentes tiroideos normales).…”

Evaluation of Quality of Life in Patients with Differentiated Thyroid Cancer by Means of the Thyroid-Specific Patient-Reported Outcome Questionnaire: A 5-Year Longitudinal Study

“…In our opinion, special attention should be devoted to older patients with DTC and to those with advanced staging on diagnosis [6]. Recently, McIntyre et al [13] collected data from the a EuroQoL 5-dimension (EQ-5D) questionnaire from 83 cancer patients attending the first UK patient-doctor thyroid cancer forum, and found that the average QoL was lower in DTC patients than in patients with breast, colorectal, or prostate cancer. A large group of these DTC patients suffered from fatigue and depression [13].…”