Article Text
Abstract
Introduction/Background Sexual health in women with gynecological malignancies is important to quality of life. Unfortunately, this entity is often under-investigated and rarely discussed.
Methodology A cross-sectional study was conducted at the medical oncology department of the Salah Azaiz Institute, using the Female Sexual Distress Scale-Revised (FSDS-R) questionnaire to assess sexual distress in women treated for gynecological malignancies undergoing treatment in November 2023.
Results We included 24 female patients, 20 of them were menopaused. Mean age was 59.58 years old.All had children and 6 were divorced. Divorce occurred after diagnosis of cancer in 3 cases. Medicalhistory of chronic illnesses was found in 20 cases, and history of surgery was found in 13 cases. Tumorlocation was dominated by uterine cancer (n=13, 54.2%) followed by cervical cancer (n=11, 45.8%). Themean time since diagnosis was 12.92 months. Disease was metastatic in 7 patients. All of the patientswere undergoing chemotherapy, 14 had radical surgery and 8 had undergone radiation therapy. Themean FSDS-R score was 10.33, and 13 patients had a score of 11 or higher, the cutoff to discriminatefemale sexual distress. Univariate analysis determined factors correlated with sexual distress: medicalhistory of chronic illness (p=0.017), menopause (p=0.044), advanced disease stage (p=0.004), undergoing radical surgery (p=0.045) and radiotherapy (p<0.001).
Conclusion Diagnosis of gynecological cancer doesn’t only affect the patient’s health, but also theirrelationship with their partner. Sexual quality of life is a main aspect of the overall well-being of cancersurvivors. Gynecological malignancies particularly affect women’s sexual quality of life either via thetumor-specific location, especially when the disease is locally advanced, or via their treatment, mainlybased on radical mutilating surgeries and locoregional radiation therapy.
Disclosures The authors report no conflict of interest.