Background: Adjuvant chemotherapy after curative resection for rectal cancer is the standard of care in several American and European guidelines.
Objective: The aim of this study was to examine the differences in health-related quality of life over time between patients with rectal cancer who were treated with adjuvant chemotherapy or observation.
Design: This is a randomized controlled phase III trial.
Settings: Health-related quality-of-life assessments were conducted in Dutch patients from 43 institutes.
Patients: Patients with stage II or III rectal cancer who underwent preoperative (chemo)radiotherapy followed by curative surgery (the SCRIPT trial) were included.
Interventions: Patients were randomly assigned to adjuvant capecitabine monotherapy for 8 cycles or observation. Health-related quality of life was assessed using the European Organization for Research and Treatment of Cancer C30 and CR38 questionnaires at 1 month after surgery (before the start of chemotherapy), and 3, 6, and 12 months after surgery.
Main outcome measures: The primary outcome measure was the difference in quality of life at 6 months after surgery, just after completion of adjuvant chemotherapy for patients in the treatment group. Second, the difference in health-related quality of life at 12 months after surgery was examined. A statistically significant difference of 5 points was considered clinically relevant.
Results: Health-related quality-of-life results of 226 of 233 patients were available. At T3, overall quality of life (C30 summary score) was worse for patients treated with chemotherapy compared with observation (mean 82.3 versus 86.9, p = 0.006), but the difference was not clinically relevant. Patients treated with adjuvant chemotherapy reported clinically relevant worse physical functioning (mean 78.3 versus 87.0, p < 0.001) and more reports of fatigue and dyspnea (35.7 versus 21.0 and 17.1 versus 6.7, p < 0.001). All differences were resolved at 12 months postsurgery.
Limitations: A selection of relatively fit patients willing to be randomly assigned may limit the generalizability of the results.
Conclusions: Although inferior health-related quality of life was reported just after completion of adjuvant chemotherapy, no persistent deterioration in quality of life was detected. See Video Abstract at http://links.lww.com/DCR/A907.