Association of health-related quality of life and benign prostatic enlargement

Objective: To investigate the association of benign prostatic enlargement a nd health-related quality of life (HRQoL) assessed by validated questionnai res, Method: Randomly selected men (n = 471) aged 40-79 years from Olmsted County, Minn. (USA) without prior prostate surgery or prostate cancer had a full urologic workup, including transrectal ultrasonography, in addition t o completing questionnaires soliciting information about urinary symptom fr equency, bother, degree of interference with daily activities and other mea sures of HRQoL. Results: Disease-specific HRQoL was worse in older men, and men with more severe symptoms. Age-adjusted mean scores for symptom severi ty, bother and activity interference were about 50% worse for men with enla rged prostates (volume > 40 cm(3)). After adjusting for age, men with enlar ged prostates were nearly 3 times (95% CI 1.6, 5.1) as likely to have moder ate to severe symptoms, and about twice as likely to have bother (odds rati o 2.4; 95% CI 1.3, 4.2) or activity interference (odds ratio 1.8; 95% CI 1. 0, 3.2) relative to men with smaller prostates. Conclusion: HRQoL measures are worse in men who are older and, after adjusting for age, in men with in creased urinary symptom frequency and enlarged prostate. The broader spectr um of patients provided by the community-based random sampling allows eluci dation of these important relationships.