Quantitative study of quality of life of neo-adjuvant chemotherapy in patients with esophageal cancer

Objective To evaluate the quality of life (QOL) of neo-adjuvant chemotherapy in patients with esophageal cancer. Methods Sixty-eight eligible patients receiving FLP protocol were included in the study. Their QOL was assessed using EORTC QLQ-C30, QLQ-OES18, Stooler`s dysphagia score and KPS respectively. Results Given the effectiveness of chemotherapy, the patients'QOL all declined slightly after the first week, that was affected prominently by chemotherapy-related nausea, vomiting and the diarrhea, but returned to the baseline level at the end of the fourth week. The score of physical function, role function and global health status in patients who was effectiveness to chemotherapy (36.8%) began to improve after the first week, and especially remarkable to the end of the fourth week (P 0.05). There score of symptoms like appetite loss, dysphagia, eating and pain also obviously alleviated after chemotherapy. Although the score of role function, cognitive function, and social function declined slightly and emotional function dropped remarkably, main symptom of esophageal cancer like dysphagia improved in 30 % about in the chemotherapy non-responder. Conclusions Neo-adjuvant chemotherapy with FLP protocol for esophageal cancer is safe and convenient, and effective to most of the patients. The improvement of QOL is not totally correlated to chemotherapy responds. KPS could not reflect the patients's QOL change after chemotherapy. QLQ-C30 together with QLQ-OES18 or Stooler`s dysphagia score may evaluate accurately the changes of QOL in esophageal cancer patients with neo-adjuvant chemotherapy.