Clinical Factors Associated with Quality of Life in Patients with Thyroid Cancer

Hyung-Jun Yoon; Jeong-Ho Seok

doi:10.11106/10.11106/jkta.2014.7.1.62

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Yoon and Seok: Clinical Factors Associated with Quality of Life in Patients with Thyroid Cancer

Review Article

J Korean Thyroid Assoc 2014;7(1):62-69.

Published online: 29 May 2014

DOI: https://doi.org/10.11106/10.11106/jkta.2014.7.1.62

Clinical Factors Associated with Quality of Life in Patients with Thyroid Cancer

Hyung-Jun Yoon, Jeong-Ho Seok

Department of Psychiatry, Yonsei University College of Medicine, Seoul, Korea

Correspondence: Jeong-Ho Seok, MD, Department of Psychiatry, Gangnam Severance Hospital, Yonsei University College of Medicine, Annex Bd. 9th Fl. 211 Eonju-ro, Gangnam-gu, Seoul 135-720, Korea Tel: 82-2-2019-3560, Fax: 82-2-2019-1318, E-mail: JOHNSTEIN@yuhs.ac

Received 8 October 2013 Accepted 18 November 2013

This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/), which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Abstract

The incidence of thyroid cancer is rapidly increasing worldwide. Recently, attention to quality of life (QOL) issues has been increasingly addressed in the management of cancer. The goal of this review is provide a systematic overview for clinical factors associated with QOL in patients with thyroid cancer. Age is often cited as a QOL predictor with older patients more vulnerable than younger patients. High levels of fatigue and psychological distress such as anxiety and depression might be associated with decreased QOL. Although surgery for thyroid cancer leads to worse QOL shortly, there is a trend towards recovery with time. Levothyroxine treatment in thyroid cancer can result in similar or slightly impaired QOL. Thyroid hormone withdrawal causes significant reductions of QOL of thyroid cancer patients. The use of recombinant human thyrotropin (rhTSH) instead of thyroid hormone withdrawal can prevent QOL deterioration by thyroid hormone withdrawal. Generally, thyroid cancer survivors have a similar or slightly worse QOL compared with the normative population. In conclusion, thyroid cancer has a considerable impact on QOL of patients, and therefore multidisciplinary approach with special concern for QOL is recommended.

Keywords: Thyroid cancer, Quality of life, Anxiety, Depression

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