The relationship between type of urinary diversion and quality of life after radical cystectomy: Ileal conduit versus orthotopic bladder

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.