Quality of life in capecitabine-treated patients with colorectal cancer is affected by their sociodemographic characteristics and their experience of the drug-related adverse effects

Background: Colorectal cancer is the third most prevalent cancer worldwide as 1.80 million new cases of the cancer were diagnosed and 862,000 patients died in 2018. Depending on the stage, upfront surgery is the main form of treatment, followed by adjuvant chemotherapy. Moreover, many drugs are approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to treat Colorectal cancer including Capecitabine. However, during cancer treatment, the measurement of patient-reported symptoms experience and quality of life can provide additional information to evaluate and compare the efficacy and toxicity profiles of the treatments. Despite the importance of patients' quality of life during treatment while they are on anti-cancer treatment, there was no published data in the literature evaluating this vital parameter concerning Iraqi patients receiving anti-cancer drugs, in general, or those on Capecitabine, in particular. Therefore, the aim of current study was to evaluate quality of life of Iraqi patients with colorectal cancer treated with Capecitabine. Methods: A cross-sectional, open-label prospective study was conducted at Al-Amal and Oncology Teaching Hospitals in Baghdad during the period from November 2021 to June 2022. A convenient sampling method was adopted to enrol patients in the current study. Quality of life assessment was performed using the European Organization for Research and Treatment of Cancer quality of life questionnaire (QLQ-C30). Microsoft Excel 2019 and the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS, Version 25) were used for data entry and analysis. The descriptive analysis focused on frequencies and percentages. Continuous variables were presented as mean (± Standard Deviation). Categorical data were presented as proportions and the Chi-squared test was used for the difference between two proportions. The level of significance was considered at P≤0.05. Results: A total of 102 patients were enrolled in the current study. Generalized fatigue was the most common adverse event as it presented in 63.7% of participants. Also, only 6.9% of participants had abnormal renal function tests. In addition, some capecitabine-treated patients had good quality of life, others did not. Conclusion: The quality of life of capecitabine-treated colorectal cancer patients seems to be sensitive to their sociodemographic characteristics and adverse effects profile of the drug.