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Health-related quality of life and psychiatric symptoms improve effectively within a short time in patients surgically treated for pituitary tumors—a longitudinal study of 106 patients

  • Clinical Article - Brain Tumors
  • Published:
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Abstract

Background

Reduced health-related quality of life (HRQoL) is a common complaint in patients suffering from pituitary tumors. Although successful tumor treatment has been reported to lead to an improvement in perceived HRQoL, the temporal gradient at which these improvements occur has not been fully addressed.

Methods

Using three validated health-related questionnaires (SF-36, SCL-90-R, QLS-H), we assessed HRQoL in 106 adult patients harboring pituitary tumors (mean age 48.0 ± 16.0 years) before as well as 3 and 12 months after initiation of treatment. The AcroQoL questionnaire was additionally applied in acromegalic patients.

Results

There was a significant improvement in all but one scale (role-physical) of the SF-36 questionnaire and all but two scales (interpersonal sensitivity, paranoid ideation) of the SCL-90-R, the QLS-H score and the AcroQoL subscales within 3 months after surgical treatment. The trend to amelioration continued at the 12 month re-assessment, but did not reach statistical significance. Linear regression analyses revealed that younger age and male gender favor a more distinct improvement of HRQoL after treatment.

Conclusions

HRQoL is considerably reduced before treatment for pituitary disease. Improvement is an early postoperative phenomenon and occurs within 3 months after treatment. Men and younger patients are more likely to improve within this time span.

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Abbreviations

AC:

Acromegaly

AcroQoL:

Acromegaly Quality of Life Questionnaire

CD:

Cushing’s disease

fT3:

Free tri-iodothyronine

fT4:

Free thyroxine

SF-36:

Short Form-36

SCL-90-R:

Symptom Checklist 90-Revised

HRQoL:

Health related quality of life

QLS-H:

Questions on Life Satisfaction-Hypopituitarism

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Conflicts of interest

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Neurosurgery, University Hospital Tuebingen, Hoppe-Seyler-Strasse 3, 72076, Tuebingen, Germany

    Monika Milian, Juergen Honegger, Christine Gerlach & Tsambika Psaras

Authors
  1. Monika Milian
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  2. Juergen Honegger
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  3. Christine Gerlach
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  4. Tsambika Psaras
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Tsambika Psaras.

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Comment

Well-being in pituitary surgery patients is a very interesting area. This nice study looks at outcomes in well being at time of surgery, at three months, and at 12 months from surgery. As expected, most improve significantly to three months except Cushing's patients (who will still be feeling unwell) and not much more until the 12-month review (which was not significant, although I would guess this was sample-size related).

The good thing is that most of our patients improve what ever!

Michael Powell

London, UK

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Milian, M., Honegger, J., Gerlach, C. et al. Health-related quality of life and psychiatric symptoms improve effectively within a short time in patients surgically treated for pituitary tumors—a longitudinal study of 106 patients. Acta Neurochir 155, 1637–1645 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00701-013-1809-7

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00701-013-1809-7

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