Relationship between nutritional status and health-related quality of life in patients receiving chemotherapy after radical ovarian cancer surgery: a cross-sectional study

Objective : To investigate the nutritional status and health-related quality of life (HRQoL) of postoperative chemotherapy patients with ovarian cancer and to discuss the relationship between these patients’ nutritional status and HRQoL. Methods : 201 postoperative chemotherapy patients with ovarian cancer were enrolled. All of them were assessed with a general information questionnaire, the Patient Generated-Subjective Global Assessment (PG-SGA), and the European Organization for Research and Treatment of Cancer Quality of Life Questionnaire-C30 (EORTC QLQ-C30). We compared the nutritional status and HRQoL among patients with different demographics and disease characteristics, as well as analyzed the correlations between nutritional status and HRQoL. Results : The mean quantitative evaluation of PG-SGA in patients receiving postoperative chemotherapy for ovarian cancer was 7.82 ± 4.58. Almost all of the study subjects in this investigation were moderately or severely malnourished and required nutritional support. We established a multivariate linear regression equation and found that the total PG-SGA score is an important predictor of HRQoL in postoperative chemotherapy patients with ovarian cancer. Conclusions : Medical staff can improve the HRQoL of this patient population by improving their nutritional status, thereby enhancing their clinical outcome.