Quality of life in patients before and after haematopoietic stem cell transplantation measured with the European Organization for Research and Treatment of Cancer (EORTC) Quality of Life Core Questionnaire QLQ-C30.

The EORTC Quality of Life Core Questionnaire QLQ-C30 is widely used, but no reference values are available for patients receiving HSCT. We retrieved data for 38 samples from 33 papers in English and German that provided evaluable information on QLQ-C30 scores (mean, s.d.) covering about 2800 patients. Results are presented as a table that provides reference data that allow QLQ-C30 scores at different points during the disease trajectory to be put in context. With respect to their central tendency and their variance, scores vary over time. Quality of life is lowest during inpatient time. About 1 year after HSCT, the pre-transplant level is reached. Physical functioning is the scale reaching the highest level of all scales. Fatigue, dyspnoea and insomnia are symptoms that remain at an elevated level and should thus be considered as persisting problems after HSCT. For the interpretation of differences between scores, a very conservative recommendation would be to set the s.d. at 30 points. Doing so, one could be quite sure of having found a clinically significant change if the difference of two scores exceeds 15 points. Differences below 5 points should be interpreted with caution.