Quality of life issues in recurrent respiratory papillomatosis

Twenty-six adult patients attending the Royal National Throat, Nose, and Ea r Hospital with Recurrent Respiratory Papillomatosis completed two postal q uestionnaires. One was the generic Short Form-36 (SF-36) quality of life in strument. Severely affected patients had lower scores in all dimensions of this instrument, with large differences from normal controls in dimensions of pain, physical limitation, and energy/vitality. The second questionnaire was newly devised, and designed to ask about a wide variety of larynx-spec ific symptoms. Answers by patients were compared with those of normal contr ols, and symptoms selected as significantly more likely to be reported by p atients were studied further. Correlation was seen with clinical parameters , and questions likely to be responsive to clinical change in disease burde n were identified.