It has been postulated that bladder cancer impacts health-related quality of life (HRQoL), but research is limited. This research is particularly important as survival for non-muscle invasive bladder cancer (NMIBC) is high, and these patients will need to live with acceptable HRQoL for many years. I investigated HRQoL in 1258 muscle invasive bladder cancer (MIBC) and NMIBC patients participating in the Bladder Cancer Prognosis Programme. Although I found no major difference in HRQoL around time of diagnosis between NMIBC and MIBC patients, I did find that different parts of HRQoL seemed to influence survival of NMIBC and MIBC. Also, patients prefer an invasive but accurate cystoscopy over a hypothetical non- invasive but less accurate urinary biomarker. Additionally, the European Organization of Research and Treatment of Cancer (EORTC) developed a quality of life questionnaire specifically for NMIBC (EORTC NMIBC-24). In this thesis, I have strengthened the structure of this questionnaire that was previously published by another UK research group. Finally, I found only a small difference in physical health between patients with incontinent and continent urinary diversion in a meta-analysis. These findings were discussed in each of the results chapters, and put into wider context in the general discussion chapter.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:bl.uk/oai:ethos.bl.uk:678913 |
| Date | January 2016 |
| Creators | Nekeman, Duncan |
| Publisher | University of Birmingham |
| Source Sets | Ethos UK |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Source | http://etheses.bham.ac.uk//id/eprint/6481/ |
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