Comparison of quality of life scores between patients whose underwent low anterior resection and abdominoperineal resection due to rectal tumors

Colorectal cancers are the third most common malignancy among all cancers and the most common malignancies among gastrointestinal system cancers. In this study, we aimed to compare survival and complications of permanent stoma in patients whose underwent radical surgery due to rectal cancer. Clinical Research Ethics Committee of Akdeniz University Medical Faculty was approved for the study. In the study, 351 patients were included in the study retrospectively from the patients who underwent low anterior resection or abdominoperineal resection for rectal cancer in Akdeniz University Medical Faculty Hospital between May 2009 and December 2015. The superiority of patients who underwent APR to LAR had been seen according to physical function (PF), physical role strenght (PRS), emotional role strenght (ERS), energy/vitality (EV), mental health (MH), social functionality (SF), general health perception (GHP) parameters and there were no statistically meaningfull differences in pain (P) score between APR and LAR patients. When this comparison performed betweeen only non-complicated patients, there were no differences had been seen between patients who underwent LAR and APR in PF, PRS, ERS, EV, P and GHP parameters and the statistically significant superiority of patients who underwent LAR against APR in MH and SF parameters. The risk of complication development should be assessed in detail before and during operation because there is no difference in oncologic outcomes between patients with APR and LAR in our study, but APR is in the forefront of quality of life evaluations. If there is no complication development, the quality of life in patients with LAR is very good, but in case of complication development, it should be taken into consideration that the quality of life falls to a worse level than patients with permanent stoma. Therefore, if there is a risk of complications such as anastomotic stricture and anastomotic leakage in the patient, we recommend that the selection of the resection technique should be done in the direction of the APR rather than the restorative procedures.