Do colorectal cancer patients with a postoperative stoma have sexual problems? A pooling up analysis of 2566 patients

Abstract

Purpose: This study aimed to evaluate the effect of the stoma on sexual function in colorectal cancer patients.

Methods: Search strategy was conducted in four databases including PubMed, Embase, the Cochrane Library, and Medline on Nov 20, 2022. After that, the quality of eligible studies was assessed by the Newcastle Ottawa Scale (NOS) and the Agency for Healthcare Research Quality (AHRQ). In order to evaluate the sexual function between the stoma group and the non-stoma group, mean values and standard deviation were pooled for scores in questionnaires, and odds ratio and 95% confidence intervals were pooled for self-designed problems. Results were shown in forest plots; Egger's test and the trim and fill analysis were used for assessing the publication bias. All the data analyses above were performed by STATA 16.0 software.

Results: Six cohort studies and three cross-sectional studies were included for this pooling up analysis. As for the European Organization for Research and Treatment of Cancer (EORTC) quality of life questionnaire (QLQ-C38), male patients with stomas had more sexual problems (mean differences = 0.32, 95% confidence intervals = 0.01 to 0.63, I² = 67.80%, P = 0.05); however, other indicators including sexual functioning, sexual enjoyment, and female sexual problems had little difference between the two groups. As for other questionnaires and problems, stoma did not have an impact on sexual function.

Conclusion: The stoma after surgery was not significantly associated with the sexual function of female patients with colorectal cancer and was associated with worse scores on only sexual problems for males.

Keywords: Colorectal cancer; Sexual function; Stoma; Surgery.