Third endpoint: quality of life (QoL)
mean NRS, postoperative pain, Pain, bleeding
ADVERSE EVENT, BLEEDING
Quality of life was assessed preoperatively and with the follow-up on day 7. In the preoperative setting, the indices of 713 of 717 patients were assessed, postoperatively of 690 cases. For this evaluation, we only used pre- and postoperative complete data sets of 686 cases.The mean/median preoperative quality of life index overall was 82.3/92.6 (IQR 79.5–92.6). One week after surgery, the mean/median values were rather similar: 83.6/92.6 (IQR 79.5–92.6).Although this seems to show an unaltered quality of life throughout the perioperative setting, the in-detail comparison of the intra-individual changes draws a different picture.The dot plot in Fig. Combined distribution of pre- and postoperative values of the EuroQoL. Every dot represents one or more patients. Patients on the diagonal (31%) show an unchanged quality of lifePatient and treatment parameters subdivided in patients with lower, unchanged, or higher QoL as shown by the EuroQol after surgery. Differences were calculated using the Fisher’s exact test on the binary data, chi-squared test on nominal data, and Mann–Whitney’s Significant differences (As shown in Table Pain level early postoperative or on day 7, surprisingly, did not lead to a decline in QoL. Overall, in our data set, we were not able to point out significant predictive measures for a quality-of-life drop postoperatively. This group of patients had only marginal higher early postoperative pain (mean NRS 2.9 ± SD 2.2), and relevant postoperative pain on day 7 was prevalent in only 14% of cases. Adverse events or bleeding did not occur more often compared to the other groups.