ABSTRACT
Background: Assessment of quality of life (QOL) helps to find out factors associated with disease progression and response to treatment, identify vulnerable groups. The objective of this study was to assess the QOL (based on physical, mental, social, emotional and spiritual dimensions) of oral and oropharyngeal cancer patients.Methods: A hospital based cross sectional study was conducted among 126 oral and oropharyngeal cancer patients attending radio therapy department of Calcutta Medical College. QOL was assessed by using validated Bengali version of two self-administered questionnaires: European Organization for the Research and Treatment of Cancer (EORTC)-30 and EORTC-35.Results: Among total 81 patients, most of the patients (45.67%) had stage III diseases. Median global health score (GHS) for all patients were 41.67. GHS deteriorated with advancement of the diseases (p=0.000), GHS significantly improved with increasing level of education (p=0.019). GHS was poorer among female patients (median for male was 45.66 and for female was 36.45; p=0.178) and patients with oropharyngeal cancer (median for oral cancer was 50.00, oropharyngeal cancer was 41.67, p=0.215). As per EORTC-35, pain was the major symptom for both type of cancer and was more among patients with oropharyngeal cancer.Conclusions: QOL deteriorates with advancement of the disease and is poorer among females. Co-morbidity status does not affect the QOL. Pain is a major problem of cancer patients, which is more with oropharyngeal cancer patients. Early detection of the cancer and proper pain management and counselling with special focus on females can improve the quality of life.
ABSTRACT
Background: Both magnitude and severity of disability in new leprosy patients measure indirectly the disease transmission in the community and rapidity of case detection. Various factors might be associated with the presence of impairment at registration. Aims: To find out the prevalence of both grade 1 and grade 2 disability among new leprosy patients along with association of some clinical and sociodemographic factors. Methods: A cross-sectional study was carried out in the Skin out patient department (OPD) of a Tertiary care hospital in West Bengal, which is situated in a highly endemic district of leprosy (prevalence was 6.5/10000, year 2007). About 244 new leprosy patients were interviewed and clinically examined during Aug'06-Jun'07. Data was analysed in percentages, χ2 test, Anova. Results: Proportion of disability was quite high among the studied new leprosy patients, 11.5% had grade-1 and 8.6% had grade-2. Disability was more among the patients with pure neuritic type of leprosy (<0.001), multibacillary leprosy (P=0.000), patients with delayed registration (P=0.000) and who were engaged as manual laborers (P=0.001). Feet were commonly involved site and nerve function impairment, both sensory and motor were the commonest nature of disability found in this study. Conclusion: To reduce new leprosy cases with grade-2 disability, early diagnosis of the leprosy patients and searching for grade-1 disability should be routine procedure in our health system, for which thorough neurological examination along with appropriate preventive measures is the need of the hour.