Comorbid conditions and health-related quality of life in long-term cancer survivors—associations with demographic and medical characteristics

Heide Götze, Sabine Taubenheim, Andreas Dietz, Florian Lordick, Anja Mehnert

Our study provides a detailed overview of comorbid conditions and health-related quality of life of long-term cancer survivors and analyses the impact of demographic, disease- and treatment-related characteristics. We present data obtained from 1000 survivors across mixed tumour entities 5 and 10 years after cancer diagnosis in a cross-sectional study. We analyse the prevalence of physical symptoms and health conditions via self-report and health-related quality of life using the EORTC QLQ-C30 in comparison to gender- and age-matched reference values of the general population. Cancer survivors reported on average 5 comorbidities; 23% had 7 or more comorbid conditions. Cancer survivors reported higher physical symptom burden than the population-especially fatigue, insomnia and pain. Type and prevalence of long-term and late effects differ with disease-related factors (e.g. cancer type, treatment) and characteristics of the patient. Cancer survivors also reported lower quality of life than the population, especially in everyday activities, social life, psychological well-being and financial difficulties. There was a positive association between high quality of life and a low level of morbidity. The specific knowledge about physical long-term consequences for the individual types of cancer could raise awareness in health care professionals for high-risk patients and help to develop adequate prevention and survivorship-programs. Limitations in the mental health area underlines the importance of psycho-oncological survivorship-care-plans, which go beyond the time of rehabilitation. Special attention should be given to the financial situation of patients in long-term follow-up care.