Sociodemographic Factors and Quality of Life in Skull Base Surgery

Objective: The primary objective was to examine the impact of sociodemographic factors on quality of life in patients undergoing skull base surgery.

Design: Retrospective review of a prospective, multi-institutional, consecutive skull base cohort database

Setting: Five international tertiary care centers including North America, Europe, and Australia.

Participants: Patients treated surgically with benign or malignant neoplasms of the anterior, anterolateral, or central skull base.

Main Outcome Measures: Sociodemographic, treatment, perioperative, and pathologic details were collected prospectively. Quality of life (QoL) measures including the skull base inventory (SBI), anterior skull base (ASB) questionnaire, and Sinonasal Outcome Test (SNOT-22) were administered to all patients at baseline, 2 weeks, 3, 6, and 12 months postoperatively. Patients were stratified based on sociodemographic factors determined a priori. Change in QoL from baseline was compared between groups over time using two-way repeat measure analysis of variance (ANOVA).

Results: 178 patients were included in analysis. There were no statistically significant differences observed in change in QoL from baseline on SBI, ASB, or SNOT-22 when comparing sociodemographic factors (p > 0.05 for all)—including age (less than vs. greater than mean), gender (male vs. female), income (less than vs. greater than median, lowest vs highest quartile), education (high school or less vs. post-secondary education), ethnicity (Caucasian vs. non-Caucasian). Subgroup analyses of patients treated with only endoscopic approaches or only pituitary pathology did not demonstrate any clinically significant differences in change in QoL from baseline.

Conclusions: In surgically treated skull base patients, sociodemographic factors did not influence patients’ postoperative QoL.

Publikationsverlauf

Artikel online veröffentlicht:
01. Februar 2023