Purpose: Health related quality of life (HRQOL) is an important measure of outcomes among patients with prostate cancer due to disease related and treatment related effects on physical and emotional health. We determined if there are differences in the HRQOL of obese men at diagnosis and after radical prostatectomy compared to the HRQOL of men with normal body mass index (BMI).
Materials and methods: Data were abstracted from Cancer of the Prostate Strategic Urological Research Endeavor (CaPSURE), a disease registry of 10,018 men with prostate cancer. A total of 1,884 men were included in study who were treated with radical prostatectomy between 1989 and 2002, had BMI information available and had completed 1 initial HRQOL questionnaire. Of these men 672 who completed at least 2 followup questionnaires were assessed further.
Results: The BMI (kg/m) distributions were 24% normal (less than 24.9 kg/m), 56% overweight (25 to 29.9), 16% obese (30 to 34.9) and 4% very obese (greater than 35 kg/m). Higher BMI was associated with worse physical function, bodily pain, general health, vitality and role physical, but better bowel bother at diagnosis independent of race. Higher BMI was also associated with worse HRQOL after radical prostatectomy for physical function, general health and vitality, but better bowel bother. HRQOL differences between BMI groups were similar among times for all measured variables. Compared to the normal group, the higher BMI groups had similar HRQOL after radical prostatectomy.
Conclusions: In the majority of domains men with higher BMI had lower HRQOL at diagnosis than men of normal BMI. Obese men have a similar recovery pattern of HRQOL after radical prostatectomy, with minimal additive long-term impairment in HRQOL relative to men of normal weight.