The Development of a Validated Instrument to Evaluate Bowel Function After Sphincter-Preserving Surgery for Rectal Cancer

Abstract

Patients undergoing sphincter-preserving surgery for rectal cancer have impaired bowel function, and those treated with radiation, coloanal anastomoses, or handsewn anastomoses have significantly worse function. This reliable and valid instrument should be used to prospectively evaluate bowel function after sphincter-preserving surgery in patients undergoing rectal cancer therapy.

Validity and reliability of the MSKCC Bowel Function instrument in a sample of Italian rectal cancer patients

“…In order to overcome these issues, Temple et al [5] The linguistic validation phase was carried out with 10 patients. A total of further 128 patients from three Italian institutions participated in the full psychometric evaluation.…”

“…Compared to patients enrolled by Temple et al [5], the Italian sampling included patients with more advanced disease, and the majority of patients had received preoperative chemo-radiotherapy. Moreover, this cohort of Italian patients was heterogeneous, since they were enrolled in three different clinical centres, and the median time to bowel continuity was much shorter than that reported by Temple et al [5].…”

“…Recently, Temple et al [5] developed and validated an 18-item self-reported questionnaire to assess bowel function in patients after sphincter-preserving surgery for rectal cancer. To the best of our knowledge, the questionnaire is the only questionnaire available in the literature and is published in English.…”

Aspectos fisiopatológicos da síndrome pós-ressecção anterior do reto para o tratamento de câncer retal

“…Several questionnaires (specific for intestinal function evaluation) are used to try to identify and measure how those functional alterations affect quality of life after ARR (9,23 28 was the first specifically proposed to evaluate intestinal function of patients submitted to sphincter preserving surgeries for the treatment of colon-rectal cancer. However, its use is restricted due to high number of items and lack of practicality.…”

Neuromodulation for low-anterior resection syndrome

“…The diagnosis of LARS, in addition to careful history and full physical examination, is augmented with the addition of validated questionnaires [11,12], to determine the severity of LARS symptoms. The most used scoring system, LARS score, stratifies patients into minor and major LARS, with a score >30 deemed major LARS and indicative of a profound compromise in quality of life.…”