Quality of life following restorative proctocolectomy for ulcerative colitis and familial adenomatous polyposis.

Ulcerative colitis (UC) is a chronic inflammatory bowel disease and familial adenomatous polyposis (FAP) is a hereditary disease of the colon. Both FAP and long standing UC carry an increased risk of colorectal cancer (CRC). At present, restorative proctocolectomy (RP) is the surgical treatment of choice for UC and for all patients with FAP. RP aims to remove the entire diseased colon and restore intestinal continuity by creating a neo-rectum with the terminal ileum [1,2]. It is a safe procedure with good functional outcome [3,4]. Assessment of the quality of life (QOL) of patients following RP has become a practical way of measuring the outcome of surgery [5,6]. The aim of this small study was to evaluate the impact of RP on the QOL and to compare the QOL before and after RP for UC and FAP.