QUALITY-OF-LIFE FOLLOWING BONE-MARROW TRANSPLANTATION - A COMPARISON OF PATIENT REPORTS WITH POPULATION NORMS

All surviving patients who had received an allogeneic bone marrow tran splant at the Princess Margaret Hospital were asked to participate in a health-related quality of life (HQL) study using the Medical Outcome s Survey - Short Form 36 (MOS SF-36), the Satisfaction with Life Domai ns Scale - Bone Marrow Transplantation (SLDS-BMT) and a current sympto ms checklist, The main objective was to compare the health status of B MT survivors with age-adjusted population norms, Of the 251 patients c ontacted, 93% returned questionnaires, The median follow-up after BMT was 40 months, ranging from 1-253 months, On average, survivors had so me diminished HQL relative to the health status of the population in g eneral, Time since transplant had a significant influence on HQL; thos e less than 3 years from transplant experienced considerable impairmen t while those who had survived beyond this point were indistinguishabl e from the normal population in most domains and significantly better in certain psychosocial aspects of health. Many patients still reporte d symptoms months after BMT; some were mildly affected while others ex perienced more troublesome symptoms, However, 81% of patients were sat isfied with the HQL outcome that they had achieved and 94% would recom mend a transplant for someone in similar circumstances.