QUALITY-OF-LIFE IN ADULT PATIENTS WITH ACUTE MYELOID-LEUKEMIA RECEIVING INTENSIVE AND PROLONGED CHEMOTHERAPY - A LONGITUDINAL-STUDY

Intensification of treatment for acute myeloid leukemia (AML) in adult patients resulted in a substantial improvement in longterm prognosis. Therefore, the assessment of quality of life (QL) of patients undergo ing treatment is of growing interest. This study was designed to evalu ate QL in patients with AML treated according to the protocol of the G erman AML-Cooperative Group (Munster, Germany). The EORTC QLQ-C 30 que stionnaire was used to analyze QL throughout therapy, evaluating defin ed specific parameters at 12 different time-points. Sixty-one patients were recruited within the first 30 months of the study. Those 28 pati ents who have completed the course of inpatient treatment (n = 28) are evaluated for changes in the conceptually distinct QL domains: Physic al Functioning (P < 0.001), Role Functioning (P = 0.001), Emotional Fu nctioning (P < 0.001) and Social Functioning (P = 0.007) improve signi ficantly from beginning of chemotherapy to the end of inpatient treatm ent. Individual assessment of Global Health Status acid Subjective QL improves significantly over the same time (P < 0.001). At the end of i npatient treatment patients suffer significantly less from fatigue, na usea/emesis, loss of appetite and sleep disturbance (P < 0.001). Altho ugh most patients with AML eventually relapse, the evaluation of QL in patients undergoing treatment shows that subjective benefit outweight s the adverse effects of antileukemic therapy.