Purpose: As most thyroid cancer patients survive for more than ten years, it has become increasingly important to understand whether the different surgery types have any effect on the quality of life (QoL) of patients.
Patients and Methods: Using observational data from head and neck surgery at the Sichuan Cancer Hospital in China, three scoring methods – sum scoring, domain-based scoring and IRT-based scoring, were employed to measure the QoL in differentiated thyroid cancer (DTC) patients and a propensity score matched analysis performed to explore the impact of surgery type on QoL as measured by the Treatment of Cancer Quality of Life core Questionnaire version 3.0 (EORTC QLQ-C30) and a disease-specific health-related quality of life questionnaire (THYCA-QoL).
Results: No statistically significant patient QoL differences were found between the two surgery types regardless of which questionnaire was used and which scoring method was used (, using the EORTC QLQ-C30 and the sum scoring; , using the EORTC QLQ-C30 and the domain-based scoring; and , using the EORTC QLQ-C30 and the IRT-based scoring; , using the THYCA-QoL and the sum scoring; , using the THYCA-QoL and the domain-based scoring; and , using the THYCA-QoL and the IRT-based scoring).
Conclusion: This study confirmed that the surgery type (hemithyroidectomy or total thyroidectomy) for DTC patients did not appear to influence their general QoL.
Keywords: thyroid cancer, quality of life, type of surgery, propensity score matching, bifactor model