Hypothesis / aims of study
Pelvic floor disorders (PFDs) either anatomical (pelvic organs prolapse) or functional (urinary incontinence and stool incontinenc) negatively affect quality of life in the general population. In fact every second female patient in postmenopausal age suffer from urinary incontinence or pelvic organ prolapse, whereas 6% to 19% of this population may demand surgery in the future. The prevalence of PFD in various gynecologic cancer survivors has not been systematically studied. This study aimed to determine the prevalence of PFDs in women after various types of oncological therapy. We hypothesized that the prevalence of PFDs in the gynecological cancer survivors would be higher than in the general female population. It is obvious that surgery itself, but also additional oncological treatment (radiation, radiochemotherapy) can negatively affect not only genitourinary system, but also quality of life. Endometrial malignancies are the most common carcinomas in gynecological oncology in postmenopausal age. Usually endometrial cancer is diagnosed by stage I or II, according to FIGO classification,and that fact implicates more than 95% 5-year survival rate.
Therefore the aim of this study was to determine the impact of treatment used among female oncological patients before and 6 months after therapy due to various gynecological malignancies.
Study design, materials and methods
The study was conducted on a group of 82 patients operated due to endometrial cancer. Patients were divided into four study groups according to therapy used. There was only one patient treated with surgery plus chemotherapy
The assessment was performed before and 6 months after using SF-36v2 questionnaire, a standardized and validated instrument, to measure quality of life. The Short Form 36 (SF-36) consists of 36 questions: one of them measures health transitions over a one-year period and is not used in scale calculation, and the remaining questions are grouped into eight scales or domains. The eight scales can be aggregated into two independent summary measures: physical component summary (PCS) and mental component summary (MCS). Higher scores indicate better health.
Patients filled out a King's Health Questionnaire (KHQ) which is a patient self administered report and has 3 parts consisting of 21 items. Part 1 contains general health perception (GHP) and incontinence impact (II). Part 2 contains role limitations (RL), physical limitations (PL), social limitations (SL), personal relationships (PR), emotions (E) and sleep/energy (S/E). severity measures (SM). Part 3 is considered as a single item and contains ten responses in relation to frequency, nocturia, urgency, urge, stress, intercourse incontinence, nocturnal enuresis, infections, pain, and difficulty in voiding.
Statistical analyses were performed with Statistica package version 12.0 (StatSoft Inc.,Tulsa, OK, USA). A p value <0.05 was considered statistically significant.
Interpretation of results
Demographic data did not differ between study groups. SF-36v2 Questionnaire clearly showed deterioration in general wellbeing after oncological treatment in all study groups.
Analysis of KHQ clearly showed that combined therapy exagerate urogynecological symptoms in patients treated due to endometrial cancer.