Allogenic haematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HCT) has become an effective therapy in patients with various haematological malignancies. GvHD is known to be a major complication in this patient group and is assumed to have a major impact on patients' quality of life (QOL). Patients after BMT or transplantation of mobilized PBSCs were considered for enrolment in the study 6 months after transplantation. QOL and symptom burden were assessed using the EORTC QLQ-C30 and the QLQ-HDC29. Data from age-and sex-matched healthy controls were collected for comparison. In all, 100 patients (55.0% women; mean age 46.3 years) after allogeneic HCT were included in the study. In this patient group, we found a clinically relevant impact of GvHD on role functioning, global QOL, fatigue, dyspnoea, gastrointestinal side effects, worries/anxiety and skin problems. In comparison to healthy controls, various aspects of QOL were severely impaired. Our study revealed severe impairments of QOL in survivors of HCT, in particular in those suffering from GvHD. Taking into account, that the prevalence of GvHD might be higher in patients after PBSCT compared with patients after BMT, PBSCT is expected to lead to more severe impairments of QOL than BMT.
The EORTC QLQ-CML24 is an internationally developed HRQOL questionnaire for CML patients, and its implementation in clinical research and practice can provide important information to facilitate clinical decision-making.
PurposeThis paper describes the international, cross-cultural development of four disease-specific EORTC QoL questionnaires, to supplement the EORTC QLQ-C30, for patients with Hodgkin lymphoma (HL), high- or low-grade non-Hodgkin lymphoma (HG/LG-NHL), and CLL.MethodsQuestionnaire development was conducted according to guidelines from the EORTC Quality of Life Group. Phase I comprised generation of QoL issues relevant to patients. Phase II included operationalization and assessment of item relevance. In phase III, items were pretested in a cross-cultural sample.ResultsIn Phase I, 75 issues were identified through focus groups and systematic literature searches. Interviews with 80 health-care professionals and 245 patients resulted in a provisional module of 38 items (phase II) representing items relevant for all or at least one of the four malignancies. In Phase III, this was tested in 337 patients from five European countries and resulted in a questionnaire with 27 items for HL (EORTC QLQ-HL27), 29 items for HG-NHL (EORTC QLQ-NHL-HG29), 20 items for LG-NHL (EORTC QLQ-NHL-LG20) and 17 items for CLL (EORTC QLQ-CLL17).ConclusionsThis study provides four new EORTC modules for use in clinical research and routine practice in conjunction with the EORTC QLQ-C30 for assessing QoL in patients with lymphoma and CLL.
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