Quality of life in patients with multiple myeloma and malignant lymphoma undergoing autologous progenitor stem cell transplantation: The effect of selected psychosocial and health aspects on quality of life: A retrospective analysis

Abstract

Background

Quality of life (QoL) is defined as “a patient's subjective evaluation of his life situation”. QoL evaluation is carried out by means of generic and specific questionnaires. Generic QoL questionnaires generally evaluate a patient's overall condition regardless of his disease. Specific QoL questionnaires are designed to evaluate a patient's overall condition for a particular type of disease.

Aim

The study analyses the effect of selected psychosocial and health aspects on quality of life in patients with multiple myeloma and malignant lymphoma undergoing autologous progenitor stem cell transplantation.

Materials/Methods

The total number of respondents undergoing transplantation between 2001 and 2003 was 56:32 respondents (18 male and 14 female) with multiple myeloma, and 24 respondents (11 male and 13 female) with malignant lymphoma. The average age of patients with multiple myeloma was 60 years and the average age of patients with malignant lymphoma was 44.5 years. The Czech version of the international generic European Quality of Life Questionnaire, Version EQ-5D, was used. The effect of selected psychosocial and health aspects (age, sex, level of education, marital status, number of associated diseases, smoking abuse, religion, type of disease and time since the transplantation) on quality of life in patients was determined by means of analysis of variance.

Results

The above-mentioned aspects proved statistically significant dependence of quality of life on age, smoking abuse in patients with multiple myeloma and on type of disease. EQ-5D score (dimensions of quality of life) and EQ-5D VAS (subjective health condition) significantly decrease with increasing age in both groups of patients and with smoking abuse in patients with multiple myeloma, and are significantly higher in patients with malignant lymphoma. The effect of other aspects on quality of life was not proven as statistically significant. The quality of life in patients with multiple myeloma undergoing autologous progenitor stem cell transplantation is at a lower level (mean EQ-5D score 68.9%, mean EQ-5D VAS 66.6%) than in patients with malignant lymphoma after the transplantation (mean EQ-5D score 82.7%, mean EQ-5D VAS 76.7%) at the Department of Clinical Haematology of the Department of Medicine of Charles University Hospital in Hradec Kralove, Czech Republic.

Conclusion

The global quality of life in our patients with multiple myeloma and malignant lymphoma undergoing autologous progenitor stem cell transplantation is at a good level.