AT SSO 2017
SEATTLE (FRONTLINE MEDICAL NEWS)– Disease anatomy is the main determinant of subsequent quality of life (QOL) in patients with locally recurrent rectal cancer at both base line and in the long term, according to findings presented at the annual Society of Surgical Oncology Cancer Symposium.
Posterior recurrences were associated with the worst QOL scores and the most severe pain.
Recurrent rectal cancer is a morbid disease state, leading to pain and disability. “Patients experience a multitude of symptoms, including disability as a result of tumor growth in a confined space in the pelvis and invasion of adjacent organs as well as complications from surgery and neoadjuvant treatment,” said lead author Dr. Tarik Sammour of the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston.
He noted, however, that “it is not all doom and gloom.” Survival outcomes have been improving in this population, with the median 5-year survival now approaching 40%-50%.
“Decade by decade, the 5-year survival outcomes are increasing,” explained Dr. Sammour.
Increasing survival also begs the question: “Are we helping patients or affording them the option of living longer with pain and disability? In other words, we need to measure patient-centered outcomes,” he said.
Data for recurrent rectal cancer are very limited, particularly when it comes to measuring patient outcomes. Most studies have been retrospective in design, making it difficult to gauge symptoms and quality of life.
The majority of studies also have focused on surgery, have short follow-up times, and may be missing data.
“Very few measure baseline quality of life, so it makes it difficult to measure trajectories,” Dr. Sammour said. “So overall we don’t know very much about the quality of life of these patients, so we thought to remedy that with a prospective study.”
Dr. Sammour and his colleagues examined the longitudinal trajectory of cancer survivorship in recurrent rectal cancer over a 7-year period. A total of 104 patients diagnosed with recurrent rectal cancer were enrolled between 2008 and 2015, and they prospectively self reported QOL using the validated EORTC QLQ-C30 and EORTC QLQ-CR29. Pain was measured by the Brief Pain Inventory.
Symptoms were measured at baseline and then every 6 months for 5 years or until death.
Within this cohort, 73 (70.2%) patients were amenable to salvage surgery with curative intent. A variety of types of surgery were performed, and R0 resection was achieved in 75% of cases.
The 30-day complication rate was 49% (21% with grade 3/4), and 5-year disease-free survival was 40%. There was no immediate mortality from the surgery.
When looking at differences between patients who underwent surgery and those who didn’t, there was a significant difference in the location of the disease. The nonsurgical group was more likely to have posterior recurrences (26%) than was the surgical group (19%).
“This makes sense since these are more difficult to achieve a R0 result with, so it may be less likely that they were offered the procedure,” Dr. Sammour said.
There was also a significant difference in estimated 5-year survival. Overall survival was 7.7% in the nonsurgical group vs. 50.9% in the surgical group (P less than .0001), and cancer-specific survival was 11.5% vs. 59.6% (P less than .0001).
As for pain and QOL scores, there were no differences between groups at baseline.
“So when they arrived at clinic they had roughly equivalent quality of life,” he said.
At follow-up, male patients were more likely to experience severe pain, but “we felt it was due to the anatomical location. Men have a narrower pelvis and don’t have the luxury of a uterus to protect the genitourinary organs,” he explained. “We suspect this may have played a role in the severity of their pain.”
Patients with posterior recurrences also had worse pain, and this was true for both surgical and nonsurgical patients.
The only determinant for QOL in those who underwent surgery was a positive margin (global health score 70.4 for negative margin and 61.9 for positive margins [P = .024]), but otherwise there were no differences by type of surgery or postoperative complications.
At a median follow-up of 33 months, patients who underwent surgery showed gradual sustained improvement in QOL but not pain scores.
“We were encouraged to see improvement,” concluded Dr. Sammour. “Surgery does improve quality of life in resectable cases.”
No funding source was disclosed. Dr. Sammour and his coauthors had no disclosures.
