Assessment of symptom experience in patients undergoing hepatic resection or ablation.

Background: Quality of life (QOL) currently is considered both clinically meaningful and biologically important for patient outcome and is considered as important as disease-free and overall survival. Thus, the objective of the current study was to evaluate the QOL symptoms of patients who underwent major hepatic resection, minor hepatic resection, and ablation for primary or metastatic cancer to the liver.

Methods: From October 2002 to June 2004, 40 patients who underwent either hepatic ablation or resection were enrolled. Patients were assessed at 5 time points (the initial visit, the initial postoperative visit, and visits at 6 weeks, 3 months, and 6 months) by questionnaires of the Functional Assessment in Cancer Therapy (FACT) core instrument with the Hepatobiliary subscale (FACT-Hep), the FACT Hepatobiliary Symptom Index (FHSI-8), the Profile of Mood States (POMS), the European Organization for Research and Treatment of Cancer (EORTC) QOL questionnaire (QLQ) for patients with pancreatic cancer (QLQ-PAN), and the general core EORTC QLQ.

Results: The patients enrolled included 20 men and 20 women with a median age of 62 years (range, 41-77 years), including 24 patients who underwent major hepatectomy, 8 patients who underwent minor hepatectomy, and 8 patients who underwent ablation. An evaluation of the FACT Physical, Social, Emotional, and Functional subscales demonstrated no differences at the initial or first postoperative visits. However, at 6 weeks, both the Physical (P = .0455) and Functional (P = .0372) scores were significantly worse for the major hepatectomy group. At 3 months, all QOL parameters were similar. Similar differences were observed at 6 weeks for the FHSI-8 (P = .02), POMS (P = .007), QLQ-PAN (P = .04), and EORTC (P = .003) with the resolution of this difference at 3 months.

Conclusions: There was little difference in QOL between patients who underwent major hepatic resection, minor hepatic resection, and hepatic ablation. Patients who underwent major hepatectomy demonstrated a worse QOL at 6 weeks compared with patients who underwent minor hepatic resection and hepatic ablation, with the resolution of this difference and significant improvements observed in all 3 groups at 3 months.