Personalized quality of life monitoring in patients with vestibular schwannoma.

Introduction The aim of this prospective study is to monitor the individual HRQOL of patients with vestibular schwannoma during the course of treatment using the PANQOL questionnaire.

Material and methods 184 patients with VS have one or more completed PANQOL questionnaires (n=256). Survey time points are at initial contact (n=98), postoperatively on discharge day (n=55) and at follow-up (n=28). Additional questionnaires were answered at wait and scan (n=10) or further outpatient follow-up (n=65). In more detail, the individual changes in HRQOL of n=17 patients (W=10, M=7, age= 58.7 years) from initial contact to immediately postoperatively are considered. Of these, 13/17 patients were operated on via a retrosigmoidal approach and 4/17 patients via a translabyrinthine approach. Koos classification: I: 4; II: 6; III: 2; IV: 5.

Results After accounting for MICDs, all (n=17) patients showed clinically relevant differences in HRQOL in different domains (improvement n=x patients; deterioration n=x patients): Hearing (n=9/17; n=6/17), balance (n=5/17; n=1/17), facial function (n=2/17; n=10/17), anxiety (n=6/17; n=4/17), energy (n=3/17; n=3/17), pain (n=7/17; n=2/17), general health (n=3/17; n=1/17). In the PANQOL total score, 12/17 patients had no clinically relevant change, n=2/17 had clinically relevant improvement, and n=3/17 had worsening.

Discussion A constant total PANQOL score does not exclude a clinically relevant change of a domain for the individual patient.

Conclusion Personalized monitoring of quality of life is useful because specific problems of individual patients can be detected and treated more efficiently.

Publication History

Article published online:
12 May 2023