Quality of life and affecting factors in myelofibrosis patients

Abstract

Abstract Purpose This descriptive survey study aimed to identify factors that affect the health-related quality of life (HRQOL) of patients with myelofibrosis (MF), including primary MF, post-polycythemia vera MF, or post-essential thrombocythemia MF . Methods The study enrolled 189 myelofibrosis patients who were treated at the outpatient department of Seoul St. Mary's Hospital, the Catholic University of Korea, and data were collected using a structured questionnaire such as European Organization for Research and Treatment of Cancer (EORTC) Quality of Life Questionnaire-Core (QLQ-C) 30 version 3.0. To explore the factors for affecting HRQOL, demographic, socioeconomic variables as well as disease-related variables were also collected. Results The quality of life of myelofibrosis patients averaged 41.53 out of 100; physical functioning was the lowest at 74.70, followed by social functioning at 75.22, and role functioning at 76.94. In terms of symptomatic quality of life, fatigue had the lowest score of 35.21, followed by insomnia and dyspnea at 26.45, and financial difficulties at 22.39. As for factors affecting quality of life, the higher the risk stratification (DIPSS Intermediate-2 and High), the lower the functional and symptomatic quality of life. Conclusion In this study, we demonstrate that HRQOL was strongly associated with myeloproliferative neoplasm symptoms and the independent factors affecting HRQOL in myelofibrosis patients. These findings can provide the help to develop interventions that can improve HRQOL of myelofibrosis patients.