Quality of Life Following Palliative Surgery for Malignant Bowel Obstruction: A Scoping Review

We performed a scoping review on the quality of life (QoL) of patients with malignant bowel obstruction who underwent palliative surgery using PubMed, EBSCO, and Cochrane databases. In total, 20 articles were included (1467 patients). Oral diet tolerance, stoma creation, and the ability to be discharged from the hospital were the main QoL outcomes reported. Most patients seem to benefit from an improved QoL. However, the QoL outcomes reported were surrogate and not patient-reported. Further prospective studies using validated QoL instruments are required.