Psychometric- and quality-of-life assessment in long-term glioblastoma survivors.
BACKGROUND
Multimodal treatment of patients with glioblastoma multiforme (GBM) allows an increasing number of patients to survive beyond one year. On account of various neurological and psychophysiological impairments, however, these patients may not benefit in terms of quality of life (QOL). We evaluated the subjective QOL, clinical psychophysiological and cognitive functions in patients with GBM surviving 18 months after diagnosis.


METHODS
Thirteen patients underwent psychophysiological and psychometric measurements for central-nervous activation, habituation of skin-conductance reaction, crystallized intelligence, verbal and psychovisual memory. QOL was assessed by the symptom check-list for somatization (SCS-Score).


RESULTS
We found various impairments such as central-nervous deactivation (n = 9) or high activation (n = 3), psychovegetative overexcitement (n = 3) or attenuation (n = 1), reduced verbal (n = 5) and/or psychovisual (n = 5) memory and loss in attention (n = 7) or concentration (n = 5). Severe physical symptoms (grade 5) were fatigue, convulsion, headache, nausea and micturition difficulties. Eleven patients expressed high satisfaction with life in general, whereas only 4 were satisfied with their general state of health. All patients were independent and 8 patients returned to work.


CONCLUSIONS
Despite various psychophysiological and cognitive impairments, subjective QOL appears mostly unaffected in this patient setting.
Schmidinger
Manuela
M
First Medical Department, Division of Clinical Oncology, University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria.
Linzmayer
Leo
L
Becherer
Alexander
A
Fazeny-Doemer
Barbara
B
Fakhrai
Negar
N
Prayer
Daniela
D
Killer
Monika
M
Ungersboeck
Karl
K
Dieckmann
Karin
K
Marosi
Christine
C
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D001254:Astrocytoma / Q000523:psychology* / Q000628:therapy; D001932:Brain Neoplasms / Q000523:psychology* / Q000628:therapy; D003071:Cognition / Q000502:physiology; D005260:Female; D005909:Glioblastoma / Q000523:psychology* / Q000628:therapy; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008568:Memory; D008875:Middle Aged; D009483:Neuropsychological Tests; D010549:Personal Satisfaction; D011594:Psychometrics; D011788:Quality of Life; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D017741:Survivors