Aim: Effects of duration of biliary patenting on quality of life in patients suffering from obstructive jaundice. Methodology: A case control study in OPD of general surgery, Unit-1, Civil Hospital, Karachi, by using non-probability consecutive sampling technique. The sample size is 195 subjects with the age of 20-80 years for both the genders. Ethical approval was taken from the concerned department. 105 patients had a duration upto 12 months since biliary patenting whereas 90 patients had duration >12 months since biliary patenting. Results: Mean duration since biliary patenting was 11.9±3.7 months whereas 105 (53.8%) of them had biliary patenting within last one year while 90(46.2%) of them had biliary patenting over a year ago. Moreover, their mean total SF-36 quality of life score was 55.2±12.5. There was a statistically significant effect of duration since biliary patenting on quality of life of obstructive jaundice patients (p<0.01) where patients who had biliary patenting within the last year had significantly higher SF-36 QOL scores than patients who had biliary patenting >one year ago. Conclusion: In obstructive jaundice, quality of life was observed more better in those patients who had a duration upto 12 months than those who had duration >12 months since biliary patenting Keywords: Obstructive jaundice, Bile duct obstruction, malignant, polyp.

Aim: Effect of age and gender on quality of life in patients of obstructive jaundice. Methodology: This was a case control study conducted in OPD of General Surgery, Unit-1, Civil Hospital, Karachi. It is non-probability, consecutive sampling technique. The sample size was 195 subjects. 87 patients had an age between 18-60 years whereas 108 patients had >60 years of age. Either gender was included. QoL was measured by using SF-36 based on 8 domains. Data were analyzed through SPSS version-21 Results: Significant effect of age in obstructive jaundice patients on their QOL (p<0.01) where patients aged from 18 to 60 years had significantly higher SF-36 quality of life scores, both overall and in all eight individual domains than patients aged >60 years. Gender of the obstructive jaundice patients did not have a significant effect on their QOL, though the female patients had higher SF-36 quality of life scores, both overall and in all eight individual domains. Conclusion: Quality of life of obstructive jaundice patients were more improved with the age between 20-60 years than age >60 years, whereas gender had no significant impact on the quality of life. Keywords: Obstructive jaundice, age, gender, quality of life