Quality of life of long‐term childhood acute lymphoblastic leukemia survivors: Comparison with healthy controls

Abstract

Objective: Improved treatment landscape has led to better outcomes for paediatric acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) survivors. As the number of survivors increase, we need to elucidate the long-term quality of life (QoL) and domains of complaints in these patients. Furthermore, the main priorities of these patients need to be clarified. We assessed long-term QoL outcomes of survivors of childhood ALL compared to matched population controls.Methods: QoL data were collected from survivors recruited in France and Belgium between 2012 and 2017, including the Short Form Health Survey (SF-12) and the Quality of Life Systemic Inventory (QLSI). The Wilcoxon test was used to compare SF-12 scale scores between survivors and matched population controls. For the QLSI, comparisons were mainly descriptive.Results: One hundred and eighty-six survivors (mean age: 27.6 years; range: 18.1-52.8) at follow-up completed QoL measures, amongst whom 180 were matched to controls. Overall, survivors had higher QoL on all SF12 scale scores, indicating that they had better functioning compared to controls. Statistically significant differences on the SF12 were observed for Vitality, Social Functioning, Role Limitations due to Emotional Problems and Mental Health scales. QLSI outcomes suggested that survivors were happier than controls with Couple and Social Relations.Anne-Sophie Darlington and Caroline Piette are co-last authors.This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Quality of life of adolescent and adult survivors of childhood cancer in Europe—A systematic review

“…Of the 23 studies that found a lower QoL in survivors, 12 were based on survivors of various cancers, 20‐25,28,31‐35 six on survivors of haematological cancers, 37‐39,44,46,48 three on brain tumour survivors, 49,51,52 one on survivors of differentiated thyroid carcinoma 53 and one on survivors of head‐and‐neck rhabdomyosarcoma 54 . The five studies that found a higher QoL in survivors were based mainly on survivors of haematological cancers 19,40,42,43,45 . One of the three studies that found no difference in QoL was based on brain tumour survivors, 50 while the other two were based on survivors of various cancers 30,36 …”

“…The included articles provided data on a total of 14 342 survivors of childhood cancer. Three articles were based on data from a French cohort of survivors of leukaemia, [37][38][39] two articles were from studies in northern Italy, 19,20 two articles were based on data from a Belgian and French cohort of survivors of hematologic cancers 40,41 and five articles used data from the Dutch LATER registry, [21][22][23][24][25] with overlapping populations. All articles were screened for overlapping populations.…”

“…31 A study in Norway of 285 survivors of childhood acute lymphoblastic leukaemia and lymphoma found medium-sized differences when comparing scores in survivors with that of the general population on PF (mean, 90.1 vs 94.0, P < .001), BP (mean, 72.2 vs 79.0, P < .001), RP (mean, 75.0 vs 87.4, P < .001) and GH (mean, 64.1 vs 80.1, P < .001). 46 The main mental subdomains found to be coherent with worse QoL were SF 22,25,32,34,35,[37][38][39]46,48,51,52 and MH, 20,25,32,34,35,44,46,49,51 but several studies also found that VT 20,22,25,32,34,35,39,46,52 and RE 25,34,[37][38][39]44,48,52 35 In the five studies that reported comparably better QoL 19,40,42,43,45 among survivors of childhood cancer, both physical and mental scor...…”

“…54 The five studies that found a higher QoL in survivors were based mainly on survivors of haematological cancers. 19,40,42,43,45 One of the three studies that found no difference in QoL was based on brain tumour survivors, 50 while the other two were based on survivors of various cancers. 30,36 Of the 23 studies that found a lower QoL in survivors, 22 found this outcome in at least one physical subdomain, [20][21][22][23][24][25]28,[31][32][33][34][35][37][38][39]44,46,48,49,[51][52][53] while 17 found the outcome in at least one mental subdomain.…”

“…Three studies found no significant differences in perceived QoL 30,36,50 and five studies found that survivors rated QoL or subscales higher than a comparison group. 19,40,42,43,45 Of the 23 studies that found a lower QoL in survivors, 12 were based on survivors of various cancers, [20][21][22][23][24][25]28,[31][32][33][34][35] six on survivors of haematological cancers, [37][38][39]44,46,48 three on brain tumour survivors, 49,51,52 one on survivors of differentiated thyroid carcinoma 53 and one on survivors of head-and-neck rhabdomyosarcoma. 54 The five studies that found a higher QoL in survivors were based mainly on survivors of haematological cancers.…”