Resumen
Surgery to prevent breast and ovarian cancer is very effective, but there is limited research into the quality of life afterwards, particularly with reference to quality-of-life scores known as utility scores. These are important for patients at increased cancer risk who are considering surgery and are essential for health-economic evaluations. This article used data from a systematic review of different quality-of-life questionnaires given to patients following these surgeries. We converted these data into utility scores, as recommended by the national guidelines. This shows that surgery to prevent breast cancer is associated with a long-term utility score of 0.92 and surgery to prevent ovarian cancer has a score of 0.97, indicating a mild?moderate impact. These are the first utility scores sourced from patients who have undergone these procedures, and they are important to doctors counselling patients about cancer prevention options and to researchers. Higher-quality studies are still needed, using the recommended quality-of-life questionnaire (EQ-5D).