Pre and post treatment quality of life among patients of hepatobiliary and pancreatic cancers in North India: A prospective study.

Context: Studies reporting quality of life (QOL) measures alongside conventional measures of effectiveness of interventions and outcome are essential.

Aims: We aimed to compare QOL and mental well-being in hepatobiliary and pancreatic cancer patients before and after receiving treatment.

Settings And Design: This was a hospital-based prospective study.

Methods And Materials: The study was conducted in North India for a period of 1 year. QOL was assessed in 118 patients using the Functional Assessment of Cancer Therapy-Hepatobiliary Scale and Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders Fifth Edition Level 1 Cross-Cutting Symptom Measure-Adult was used to assess the psychiatric domains of subjects.

Statistical Analysis Used: The data were analyzed using MS Excel and SPSS version 23. Statistical significance between QOL scores at baseline and 12 weeks was evaluated by Student's t-test. Pre- and post-Cronbach's alpha reliability coefficient was also calculated.

Results: 59.4% of subjects were females and 40.6% were males. Carcinoma gallbladder was the predominant cancer (2/3) followed by carcinoma pancreas (1/3). Both pre- and posttreatment reliability coefficients showed values ≥ 0.75, indicating that the questionnaire reliably measured different domains of health-related QOL, both on generic and disease-specific scales. Using paired t-test, a significant difference was observed only in the physical (P = 0.001) and functional (P = 0.0002) domains. There was a slight increase in proportion of patients demonstrating improvement in severity of depression and anxiety at 6-12 weeks and the number of patients experiencing moderate symptoms of sleep disorders and somatic disorders. The number of patients experiencing severe symptoms of anger decreased posttreatment.

Conclusions: QOL is amenable to improvement with timely interventions including counseling.