Health-related quality of life of daily-life-affected benign essential blepharospasm: Multi-center observational
Parima Hirunwiwatkul1,2, Wajamon Supawatjariyakul1,2, Supharat Jariyakosol1,2
1Faculty of Medicine, Department of Ophthalmology, Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok, Thailand.
Purpose:
To compare Thais' health-related quality of life (HRQOL) and severity grading, efficacy and safety in daily-life-affected benign essential blepharospasm (BEB) patients at baseline and after Botulinum toxin type A (BTX-A) treatment.
Design:
Prospective-observational study.
Participants:
BEB patients with Jankovic rating scale (JRS) at least 3 in both severity and frequency graded from 14 institutes nationwide were included from August 2020 to June 2021.
Methods:
Demographic data, HRQOL evaluated by the Thai version of EQ-5D-5L and NEI-VFQ-25 questionnaires, and severity grading score evaluated by Jankovic rating scale (JRS) at baseline, 1, and 3 months after the treatment were collected. The impact of the BTX-A injections and their complications were recorded.
Results:
184 daily-life-affected BEB patients were enrolled; 159 patients (86.4%) had complete data with a mean age of 61.40±10.09 years. About 88.05% were female, and 10.1% were newly diagnosed. Most of the patients had bilateral involvement (96.9%) and 12.6% had history of BEB-related accident. After BTX-A treatment, HRQOL improved significantly in 4 dimensions of EQ-5D-5L, except self-care. The EQ_VAS (mean±SD) was 64.54±19.27, 75.13±15.37, 73.8±15.85 (p<0.001) and EQ-5D-5L utility score was 0.748±0.23, 0.824±0.19 and 0.807±0.19 at baseline, 1, 3 months after treatment, respectively. From NEI-VFQ-25, HRQOL also improved in all dimensions, except eye pain. The JRS improved in all patients. Self-reported minor adverse events were 22.6%, which mostly resolved within the first month.
Conclusion:
Daily-life-affected BEB impacted HRQOL in most dimensions from both generic and visual-specific questionnaires. BTX-A treatment not only decreased disease severity, but also improved quality of life.
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