## Materials and Methods  
The study group consisted of 32 patients who freely consented to participate in the research. The cross-sectional study was conducted between November 2019 and March 2020 and interrupted temporarily due to the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown in Romania on March, 16 th, 2020. The study was carried out at Regional Institute of Oncology, Iasi, Romania. The genetic risk was analyzed based on the genetic tree and the Amsterdam criteria by oncogenetics specialists. The inclusion criteria in the study were: patients over 18 years of age, without cognitive disorders, with unaltered judgment and introspection capacity, having awareness of oncological disease, with oncological diagnosis and genetic risk. All patients who were asked to answer the questionnaire, after basic information of the study, gave their informed consent and filled in the QoL assessment questionnaire. The exclusion criteria were: patients with oncological diagnosis but without a genetic risk, those in the stage of denial of the oncological disease, confused or disoriented, and those with problems in understanding the instructions to fill in the questionnaire. The study was conducted in accordance with the Helsinki Declaration and with several published principles [20; 21; 22; 23; 24; 25; 26]. The inclusion criteria were suspected diagnosis of Lynch syndrome (Hereditary Nonpolyposis Colorectal Cancer), preoperative chemoradiation, and colostomy surgery. The exclusion criteria referred to the diagnosis of sporadic CRC, but they were not related to the age group, gender, or residence area of the patients. Genetic risk was assessed taking into account the Amsterdam II Criteria (1998) for the identification of hereditary risk at CRC, also called criteria 3-2-1, as follows:  
1. at least three persons in the same family affected by histologically confirmed cancer belonging to the HNPCC-Lynch spectrum (colorectal, endometrial, small bowel, urinary tract, renal pelvis, ovarian) histologically proven, united 2 by 2 by degree 1 of kinship (one of the persons is a 1 st degree relative of the other two);
2. at least two generations are involved;
3. at least one of these cancers was declared before the age of 50 (familial adenomatous polyposis must be excluded). The family history and the establishment of the genetic tree were traced (a key element for the evaluation of the notion of hereditary risk). For example, a person included in this study, from the point of view of genetic risk assessment, has the following family characteristics: 42-year-old patient diagnosed with rectal polyps; upper rectal adenocarcinoma--T1 N0 G1 M0; sigmoid diverticulosis at the age of 33 with a family history of colorectal cancer and polyps: mother-colonic polyp, brother-colonic diverticulosis, maternal aunt-colonic polyps, maternal grandfather-colon neoplasm, is accepted for genetic testing meeting the inclusion criteria. The features are provided in the Figure 1:  
The chemotherapy protocol consisted either of monotherapy with fluoropyrimidines (5-fluorouracil intravenously; capecitabine or tegafur-uracil, both administered orally) in combination with preoperative radiotherapy, or as combination therapy (5-fluorouracilacil, leucovorine, and oxaliplatin). The cross-sectional study consisted of applying the EORTC questionnaire, version QLQ-CR29 specially designed for patients with CRC. The version translated in Romanian language was used online with the consent of the EORTC Organization, used for academic purposes only. The QLQ-CR-29 questionnaire has not been validated yet on the Romanian population, this being the purpose of a subsequent research based on the results of the present study. As of now there is only the official translation of the questionnaire in Romanian accepted by EORTC. Questionnaire validation for the study group. [PERSON]'s alpha coefficient value was calculated separately by gender, so [PERSON]'s alpha coefficient in males was 0.819 and females was 0.907.