Hirschsprung's Disease: Surgical Techniques and Quality of Life

Study Overview
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Brief Summary
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This is an observational study examining the long-term quality of life in patients with Hirschsprung's Disease in relation to the choice of surgical technique.

Detailed Description
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Hirschsprung's Disease (HD) is a developmental defect causing functional obstruction of bowel. It is a condition that almost always requires surgical intervention. This study aims to examine the relation between quality of life and surgical technique in patients with Hirschsprung's disease in hopes of providing insight into advantages and disadvantages of different surgical techniques employed at OUH, department for general surgery in the time between 1985 and 2012. This will be done based on answers given on a set of validated questionnaires that has been sent to all patients diagnosed with HD in the years 1985 to 2012 at OUH, department for general surgery.

Official Title
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Quality of Life in Patients With Hirschsprung's Disease in Relation to Surgical Technique: a Study of a Danish Population

Conditions
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Quality of Life

Participation Criteria
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Eligibility Criteria
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Inclusion Criteria: All patients diagnosed with HD at the Surgical Department at Odense University Hospital from 1985 to 2012 will be invited to enroll in the study. Exclusion Criteria: lack of informed consent, pregnancy, wrong diagnosis and inability to understand or answer the questionnaires.

Ages Eligible for Study
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Minimum Age: 9 Years

Sexes Eligible for Study
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All

Accepts Healthy Volunteers
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No

Study Plan
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How is the study designed?
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What is the study measuring?
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Primary Outcome Measures

| Outcome Measure | Measure Description | Time Frame |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Hirschsprung Quality of life Questionnaire sub scales and total score | Disease specific questionnaire including sub scales for laxative and constipating diet, presence of diarrhoea and constipation, faecal and urinary incontinence, social and emotional functioning, body image, physical symptoms and sexual functioning. Each item is phrased as a multiple-choice question with four response options; never, once in a while, often and very often. Responses are linearly transformed on a 0-100 scale with a higher score indicating better QOL. | Day 1 | 
| General Quality of Life | Based on a generic SF-36 questionnaire subscaled into perception of health, physical functioning, physical role functioning, emotional functioning and emotional role functioning. Each question is phrased as a multiple-choice question with varying options depending on the type of question. | Day 1 | 
| Type of Surgical Intervention | At our centre three different types of surgical approaches have been employed: Soave operation, Low anterior resection (Rehbeins operation) and trans-anal pullthrough. These outcomes will be correlated to outcomes of quality of life in other to compare the resulting quality of life between the different surgical approaches. | Day 1 | 

Secondary Outcome Measures

| Outcome Measure | Measure Description | Time Frame |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Rate of Complications | Data will be retrieved through electronic medical journals. Data such as short term and long term major postoperative complications will be gathered in order to compare prevalence of surgical complications to type of surgical approach. | Day 1 |