Validation of a Novel, Surgery-Oriented Patient-Reported Outcome Tool in Advanced Ovarian Cancer: A Prospective Study of the P.A.D.OV.A Survey (The SQUALO Trial)

Background: Quality of life is an important outcome after cytoreductive surgery for advanced ovarian cancer. Developed within the SQUALO study, the P.A.D.OV.A survey aims to capture surgery-related symptoms and complement the established EORTC QLQ-C30 and QLQ-OV28 questionnaires. Aim: To assess postoperative quality of life, explore differences between patients with and without bowel resection, and investigate the preliminary measurement properties of the P.A.D.OV.A survey. Methods: Historical and newly collected patient-level data were combined for the 30-day postoperative analysis, including 98 patients: 53 undergoing bowel resection and 45 without resection. EORTC scores were transformed to a 0–100 scale and compared using exploratory Welch’s t-tests. Preliminary P.A.D.OV.A analyses included 13 complete new questionnaires and examined symptom-domain differences, internal consistency and correlations with EORTC measures. Historical P.A.D.OV.A summaries were presented separately because individual responses were unavailable. Results: Bowel resection was associated with higher fatigue, pain, dyspnea and diarrhea scores and lower role functioning at 30 days. Nevertheless, global health status was similar between groups despite greater recorded disease burden among patients undergoing resection. In the P.A.D.OV.A subset, bowel symptom scores were numerically higher after resection (21.1 ± 15.4 versus 7.6 ± 6.6; p = 0.124). Internal consistency across the 20 common items was 0.777, although these items represent several symptom domains. Correlations between P.A.D.OV.A bowel scores and established EORTC gastrointestinal measures were in the expected direction, providing encouraging preliminary evidence. Conclusions: These findings highlight the value of assessing specific postoperative symptoms alongside overall quality of life. Similar global health scores suggest that greater early symptom burden can coexist with comparable overall perceived health. The preliminary P.A.D.OV.A findings provide a useful foundation for further evaluation as a complementary assessment tool. Larger longitudinal studies are needed to establish its measurement properties and clarify its contribution to patient counselling and postoperative care.