| BackgroundThere is a high incidence of esophageal carcinoma in china. At present, surgery, radiotherapy and combined therapy are considered as more positive and effective therapeutic regimens of esophageal carcinoma. The indication of surgical treatment is so definite that only 1/4 of all patients can take this treatment as radical cure. So radiation therapy is selected as the most common, effective and safe treatment of esophageal carcinoma. In recent years, the precise radiotherapy technology has increased the local control rate of esophageal carcinoma, and has reduced the probability of radio complication in peripheral normal tissues. With the increasing survival rate of esophageal carcinoma,more attention have been focused on the quality of life after treatment.Objective:To evaluate the impact of the conventional radiotherapy and the intensity modulated radiation therapy on short term quality of life (QL) in patients with esophageal carcinoma, and to discuss for the impact factors to the quality of life of esophageal cancer patients who have accepted radiotherapy.Methods:The patients are selected from esophageal carcinoma patients treated by conventional radiotherapy or the intensity modulated radiation therapy from January 2008 to December 2008 in our hospital, the EORTC QLQ-C30 questionnaire are investigated to the patients one day before radiotherapy, one day after radiotherapy and three month after radiotherapy,and the average score of the patients who survive more than 3 month after radiotherapy are calculated (n = 38).Through the analysis of paired-samples t test and rank test, the quality of life in the period of one day after radiotherapy, of three month after radiotherapy and of one day before radiotherapy are compared, Through the analysis of independent-samples t test and rank test,the difference of the life quality before and after radiotherapy between the patients who receive conventional radiotherapy and patients who receive the intensity modulated radiation therapy is obtained.Using multiple linear regression analysis the effect of the general characteristics of patients such as age, sex, clinical stage, lesion site,smoking and drinking upon the life quality of patients with esophageal cancer are analysed.Results:The quality of life declined after radiotherapy compared with what before radiotherapy,but it resumed in three month. The function and global health/QL is reduced significantly one day after the radiotherapy,howerve ,the most symptoms and individual symptoms are significantly improved.Among the impacts on the life quality of patients with different treatments of radiotherapy, the emotional function ,financial difficulties score are significantly lower and Loss of appetite is significant higher in the intensity modulated radiation therapy group than in conventional radiotherapy group, the difference is significant. The general characteristics of the esophageal cancer patients have no significant effect on the quality of life.Conclusion:(1)The Quality of Life measurement QLQ-C30 (the Chinese version , 3th Edition)provided by the European Organization for Cancer Research and Treatment (EORTC) directly, which reliability, validity and sensitivity have been tested in a number of countries and have been applied to cancer patients clinical research successfully, may also be useful for measurement of the Chinese quality of life of cancer patients.(2)The negative impact on quality of life in patients of Radiotherapy is temporary, and can resume after a period of time. With the efficacy of radiotherapy, the quality of life of the patient can be significantly improved.(3)Among the impacts on the life quality of patients, the intensity modulated radiation therapy shows more superiority than conventional radiotherapy.(4) The characteristics such as age, sex, clinical stage, lesion site,smoking and drinking have no effect upon the life quality of patients with esophageal cancer.
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