Psychometric- and quality-of-life assessment in long-term glioblastoma survivors

Background: Multimodal treatment of patients with glioblastoma multiforme (GBM) allows an increasing number of patients to survive beyond one year. On account of various neurological and psychophysiological impairments, however, these patients may not benefit in terms of quality of life (QOL). We evaluated the subjective QOL, clinical psychophysiological and cognitive functions in patients with GBM surviving 18 months after diagnosis. Patients and methods: Thirteen patients underwent psychophysiological and psychometric measurements for central-nervous activation, habituation of skin-conductance reaction, crystallized intelligence, verbal and psychovisual memory. QOL was assessed by the symptom check-list for somatization (SCS-Score). Results: We found various impairments such as central-nervous deactivation (n = 9) or high activation (n = 3), psychovegetative overexcitement (n = 3) or attenuation (n = 1), reduced verbal (n = 5) and/or psychovisual (n = 5) memory and loss in attention (n = 7) or concentration (n = 5). Severe physical symptoms (grade 5) were fatigue, convulsion, headache, nausea and micturition difficulties. Eleven patients expressed high satisfaction with life in general, whereas only 4 were satisfied with their general state of health. All patients were independent and 8 patients returned to work. Conclusion: Despite various psychophysiological and cognitive impairments, subjective QOL appears mostly unaffected in this patient setting.