Abstract
OBJECTIVES: We aimed to compare health-related quality of life (HrQoL) in patients who underwent ileal conduit (IC) vs orthotopic neobladder (ONB) as a method of urinary diversion (UD) after radical cystectomy (RC) for invasive bladder cancers. METHODS: The questionnaires of the Functional Assessment of Cancer Therapy-Bladder Cancer (FACT-BL) were used to evaluate and compare the HrQoL in 113 patients with 1 year follow-up. RESULTS: Forty-nine patients were included in the ONB group and 64 patients in the IC group. Patients with IC showed superior scores in all domains of the FACT-BL questionnaire and this reached statistical significance in physical well-being (PWB), functional well-being (FWB), over all FACT-G, Bladder-Specific Subscale and FACT-BL total scores (P-values = .01, .01, .001, .001, and .001, respectively). CONCLUSIONS: Our findings demonstrate marginally improved HrQoL in IC patients when compared with patients undergoing ONB which may be attributed to an increased morbidity and postoperative complications in the ONB group.