Patients' perception of health-related quality of life during the first year after autologous and allogeneic stem cell transplantation.

Little attention has been paid to examine health-related quality of life (HRQoL) the first year post-transplant, despite that this period is crucial for returning to normal life and functioning and to prevent delayed psychosocial adjustment. The purpose of the present study was to describe HRQoL after autologous versus allogeneic stem cell transplantations during the first year post-transplant. The allogeneic group was further divided into two groups: allogeneic stem cell transplantation after reduced intensive conditioning and allogeneic stem cell transplantation after myeloablative conditioning. All together 202 patients were enrolled in the study. HRQoL was assessed by the European Organization for Research and Treatment of Cancer Quality of Life Questionnaire (EORTC QLQ-C30) and the treatment-specific module High-Dose Chemotherapy (HDC-19). The questionnaires were filled out at six occasions (from inclusion to 12 months after transplantation). The reduced intensive conditioning group seemed to recover in the same way as the autologous group and these two groups were closer in their scoring compared with the myeloablative conditioning group. One month after the transplantation there were no significant differences in change scores between the autologous and reduced intensive conditioning group, and 1 year after the transplantation levels of symptoms and functioning were back to baseline or better. The myeloablative conditioning group, who perceived more symptoms and lower levels of functioning during the whole period, was still impaired in 10 out of 29 scales 1 year after the transplantation and no significant improvements compared with baseline were observed for this group.