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Quality of Life

The quality of life of adult survivors of childhood hematopoietic cell transplant

Bone Marrow Transplantation volume 45, pages 746–754 (2010)Cite this article

Abstract

Survival rates after myeloablative hematopoietic cell transplantation (HCT) in childhood have improved. We conducted a cross-sectional study evaluating the quality of life (QOL) of 214 adult survivors of a childhood HCT compared with controls using standardized self-report measures with strong psychometric properties to evaluate physical function, psychological function and cognitive symptoms. From these results we conducted a multivariate analysis of risk factors. This analysis for physical functioning showed poorer function among myeloid disease survivors compared with patients with all other diagnoses (P=0.02), men functioned better than women (P=0.05) and those >18 years after transplant functioned more poorly than those <18 years after transplant (P=0.05). Psychological functioning showed that those who received more therapy and females were more likely to be depressed (P=0.03) and (P=0.005). Perceived cognitive symptoms showed that female survivors had more symptoms than male survivors (P=0.01), and those receiving more preceding therapy compared with those with less preceding therapy (P=0.001) or cranial irradiation compared with those without cranial irradiation (P=0.002) had more perceived cognitive symptoms. Overall, these data indicate that the majority of adult survivors of a childhood transplant are functioning well, but some have problems that need to be addressed.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Clinical Research Division, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, Seattle, WA, USA

    J E Sanders, P A Hoffmeister, B E Storer, F R Appelbaum, R F Storb & K L Syrjala

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  1. J E Sanders
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  2. P A Hoffmeister
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  3. B E Storer
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  4. F R Appelbaum
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  6. K L Syrjala
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Correspondence to J E Sanders.

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Sanders, J., Hoffmeister, P., Storer, B. et al. The quality of life of adult survivors of childhood hematopoietic cell transplant. Bone Marrow Transplant 45, 746–754 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1038/bmt.2009.224

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