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Evaluation of the feasibility of and results of measuring health‐status changes in patients undergoing surgical treatment for skeletal metastases
Author(s) -
Clohisy Denis R.,
Le Chap T.,
Cheng Edward Y.,
Dykes Daryll C.,
Thompson Roby C.
Publication year - 2000
Publication title -
journal of orthopaedic research
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.041
H-Index - 155
eISSN - 1554-527X
pISSN - 0736-0266
DOI - 10.1002/jor.1100180102
Subject(s) - medicine , attrition , quality of life (healthcare) , physical therapy , performance status , radiation therapy , physical health , mental health , surgery , overall survival , nursing , dentistry , psychiatry
The goal of treating patients with skeletal metastases is to decrease pain and improve or maintain physical function. Assessment of the effectiveness of treatment should therefore include evaluation of patient‐rated measures of quality of life. The primary objective of the study was to determine the feasibility of studying the effect of surgical treatment of skeletal metastases on quality of life. The secondary objective was to provide data that begin to characterize this effect. The characteristics of patients with skeletal metastases are heterogeneous, patient enrollment in the study may be low, high attrition occurs secondary to death, and well accepted health‐status measures (such as the Short Form‐36) may be ineffective at detecting changes in health status: therefore, it is difficult to study these patients. High attrition and adjuvant treatment with radiation or chemotherapy made it impractical to draw firm conclusions about the effect of surgical treatment, but a trend toward improvement in selected health‐status measures for both physical and mental health was noted. Analysis of patient‐rated health‐status scores as predictors of survival indicates that improvement in these scores 6 weeks after surgery is associated with an increase in the length of survival following surgery.