Quality of Life After Surgical Treatment for Thyroid Cancer —Reply

In Reply We appreciate Dr Chow ’s interest in our study. We agree that having a central lymph node dissection might affect patients’ reported health-related quality of life (HRQOL). In our cohort, 29% of those who had a total thyroidectomy had concurrent central lymph node dissection. We have now further explored whether this affected the association between thyroidectomy and HRQOL in 2 ways. First, we included this as a variable in our multivariable analyses. Compared with having a hemithyroidectomy, we found that the association between having a total thyroidectomy and reporting an HRQOL issue was similar whether we a djusted for central lymph node dissection (adjusted odds ratio [aOR], 1.47; 95% CI, 1.03-2.11) or not (aOR, 1.49; 95% CI, 1.04-2.12). Second, we created separate categories for total thyroidectomy with central lymph node dissection and for total thyroidectomy alone. Again, there was little differenc e in the estimates between these 2 categories (with central lymph node dissection: aOR,1.50; 95% CI, 0.92-2.43; without central lymph node dissection: aOR, 1.48; 95% CI, 1.03-2.14). Hence, having central lymph node dissection in addition to total thyroidectomy did not appear to have an appreciable a dditional impact on the reporting of HRQOL issues in our cohort.
Source: JAMA Otolaryngology - Head and Neck Surgery - Category: ENT & OMF Source Type: research