Ren H, et al. – Analysts intended to distinguish symptom distress and clusters in patients 3 months after radical cystectomy and to explore their potential predictors. It was suggested that bladder cancer patients experience concurrent symptoms that appear to cluster and are significantly correlated with quality of life. Furthermore, symptom clusters may be predicted by certain demographic and clinical characteristics.

Methods

• Analysts applied cross–sectional design to evaluate 99 bladder cancer patients 3 months after radical cystectomy.
• They collected data by demographic and disease characteristic questionnaires, the symptom experience scale of the M.D.
• In this analysis, Anderson symptom inventory, two additional symptoms specific to radical cystectomy, and the functional assessment of cancer therapy questionnaire.
• They applied a factor analysis, stepwise regression, and correlation analysis.

Results

• Three symptom clusters were distinguished: fatigue–malaise, gastrointestinal, and psycho–urinary.
• They observed that age, complication severity, albumin post–surgery (negative), orthotropic neobladder reconstruction, adjuvant chemotherapy and American Society of Anesthesiologists (ASA) scores were significant predictors of fatigue–malaise.
• They exhibited evidence that adjuvant chemotherapy, orthotropic neobladder reconstruction, female gender, ASA scores and albumin (negative) were significant predictors of gastrointestinal symptoms.
• As per the data, being unmarried, having a higher educational level and complication severity were significant predictors of psycho–urinary symptoms.
• The associations between clusters and for each cluster with quality of life were significant, with the highest correlation found between the psycho–urinary cluster and quality of life.