HEALTH-RELATED QUALITY-OF-LIFE AFTER CYSTECTOMY - BLADDER SUBSTITUTION COMPARED WITH ILEAL CONDUIT DIVERSION - A QUESTIONNAIRE SURVEY

Objective To compare the health-related quality of life after bladder substitution with that following ileal conduit diversion. Patients and methods Sixty-seven male patients with bladder cancer completed the q uestionnaire; 38 had undergone bladder substitution and 29 ileal condu it diversion; the median follow-up was 1.0 year (range 0.5-3.0) and 4. 8 years (range 1.1-15.2), respectively. Semi-structured qualitative in terviews were conducted and analysed, and the questionnaire was develo ped based upon these results. Results Both day- and night-time urinary leakage occurred more frequently following bladder substitution (18% against 10%, and 21% against 3%). Nevertheless, urinary leakage affect ed conduit patients more severely and they scored higher on a leakage distress scale. Furthermore, 58% of the ileal conduit but only 21% of the bladder substitution patients gave urinary leakage as their main c oncern (P=0.04). Ileal conduit patients did not retain their body imag e as well as those with bladder substitution The frequency of both sex ual and non-sexual physical contacts decreased in the majority of the conduit patients but only in a minority of the bladder substitute pati ents. Global satisfaction was high and similar in both groups. Conclus ion These results show that the health-related quality of life is reta ined to a higher degree after bladder substitution and supports the us e of this procedure as the standard method of diversion after cystecto my for bladder cancer.