The quality of life monitoring in patients with uveal melanoma at diagnosis and 12 months after treatment

Abstract

Purpose. The purpose of the study was the quality of life monitoring in patients with uveal melanoma (UM) depending on age and treatment type during the first year follow-up.Material and methods. The study included 123 patients with primary UM aged from 17 to 82 years. Depending on the age the patients were divided into three groups: group I (17 to 25 years), II (27 to 59 years), III (60 to 82 years), and each group was divided into subgroups depending on the treatment type (eye-preserving or enucleation). As tools for the quality of life assessment the questionnaires SF-36 and VF-14 were used.Results. Statistically significant differences in quality of life (QOL) were obtained comparing the responses of patients after laser treatment, radiation therapy and enucleation. The QOL indices of UM patients 12 months after the start of treatment in the basic group and the group of eye-preserving treatment were significantly higher compared with indices during the initial survey. Among the patients after enucleation occurred an opposite situation. In the subjective assessment a statistically significant difference of visual acuity of the diseased eye was revealed in patients after the laser and radiation therapy. Statistically significant differences in the degree of binocular vision alteration depending on the type of treatment were not determined in patients of the groups I and II. In the group III a significantly better outcome was obtained in patients after eyepreserving treatment compared with patients after enucleation.Conclusion. Thus, our study determined that the choice of treatment type was a fundamental factor affecting changes in QOL of UM patients 12 months after the treatment. Hence, a timely UM diagnosis, allowing the use of the eye-preserving treatment is the key to success in the improvement of quality of life for UM patients.

Keywords

• uveal melanoma
• quality of life