Background. Differentiated thyroid cancers are among the best prognosing malignant neoplasms. Relatively low mortality and considerably high frequency of late recurrences, in these cases a lifetime ongoing therapy, make quality of life warranting an especially important issue. The treatment consists of thyroidectomy with suppressing L-thyroxine doses and ¹³¹I administration. We aimed at an evaluation of quality of life in patients with differentiated thyroid cancers.
Material and methods. We constructed a new quality of life questionnaire containing 35 disease specific question (27 closed type and 8 open type). To estimate patients' complaints six grade scale was applied (0-5 points; 0 - lack of symptoms, 5 - maximal intensification of symptoms). We investigated 51 patients group (39 women, 12 men) at the age of 48.7 ± 12.9 years with histologically diagnosed 3.8 ± 6.3 years ago differentiated thyroid cancers.
Results. Symptoms of hyper- and hypothyroidism occurred in every case. The frequency and the intensification of symptoms were described as follows: night sweating (63%; 3.1 points), flapping tremor (58%; 2.9 points), weight loss (42%; 3.2 points), hot sensation (68%; 3.4 points), palpitation (79%; 3.3 points), irritability (89%; 3,6 points), dysmenorrhoea (40% women; 3,0 points), diarrhoea (21%; 1.5 points), constipation (74%; 2.9 points), fatigue and sleepiness (89%; 3.5 points), skin dryness (95%; 3.8 points), oedema (79%; 3.3 points), hair loss (50%; 2.8 points), body mass gain (74%; 3.9 points), cryaesthesia (84%; 4.2 points). 58% of patients feared ¹³¹I therapy (3.2 points). We also asked patients about surgical treatment complications, job loss, financial difficulties, fear al death, suicidal concerning thoughts.
Conclusions: 1. L-thyroxine intake and withdrawal seriously alters patients? quality of life. 2. Laryngeal recurrent nerve damage and hypoparathyroidism occur frequently as complications of surgical treatment. 3. Financial and psychological problems are present in a wide range of patients.