Quality of Life in Gastric Cancer: Karnofsky's Scale and Spitzer's Index in Comparison at the Time of Surgery in a Cohort of 1081 Patients

R. Küster Dept. of Surgery, Krankenhaus der Augustinerinnen, Cologne, FRG; Dept. of Biostatics, University of Cologne, Cologne, FRG

B. Gebbensleben Dept. of Surgery, Krankenhaus der Augustinerinnen, Cologne, FRG; Dept. of Biostatics, University of Cologne, Cologne, FRG

H. Stützer Dept. of Surgery, Krankenhaus der Augustinerinnen, Cologne, FRG; Dept. of Biostatics, University of Cologne, Cologne, FRG

B. Salzberger Dept. of Surgery, Krankenhaus der Augustinerinnen, Cologne, FRG; Dept. of Biostatics, University of Cologne, Cologne, FRG

P. Ahrens Dept. of Surgery, Krankenhaus der Augustinerinnen, Cologne, FRG; Dept. of Biostatics, University of Cologne, Cologne, FRG

H. Rohde Dept. of Surgery, Krankenhaus der Augustinerinnen, Cologne, FRG; Dept. of Biostatics, University of Cologne, Cologne, FRG

Abstract

Karnofsky's performance status scale (KS) and Spitzer's quality of life index (QLI) were used to assess the quality of life of 1081 patients with histologically proven gastric cancer who entered the German multicentre observational field study for the validation of the TNM system for gastric cancer. Age and sex distribution and interscale correlation were examined to obtain information about the validity of the KS and the quality of life of gastric cancer patients. Age and sex distributions revealed two trends: men seemed to have better KS and QLI values than women, and old patients had worse QLI values than young patients. The interscale correlation gave a good -0.72 Spearman's rank correlation coefficient (p < 0.001). These results showed that KS and QLI had comparable age and sex distributions among gastric cancer patients. Together with the good interscale correlation this means a mutual confirmation of both concepts and of the first contributions for the validation of KS.

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Quality of Life in Gastric Cancer: Karnofsky's Scale and Spitzer's Index in Comparison at the Time of Surgery in a Cohort of 1081 Patients

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Quality of Life in Gastric Cancer: Karnofsky's Scale and Spitzer's Index in Comparison at the Time of Surgery in a Cohort of 1081 Patients

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