Lazor T, et al. - A contemplation was pursued of the effect of lung transplantation (LTx) on quality of life (QoL) of pediatric recipients. The significance of QoL outcomes was underscored here while exploring LTx as a therapeutic choice. In order to examine the long-term QoL outcomes post-LTx and standardized integration of patient-reported outcomes into clinical practice, additional research was necessitated.

Methods

• The eligible candidates included LTx recipients aged 8-17 years and their parents, from a Canadian pediatric transplant centre.
• Enrollees completed the PedsQL 4.0 Generic Core Scales, a validated health-related QoL patient-reported outcome measure for children and adolescents, pre-transplant and two times post-transplant.
• A comparison was performed of the pre-LTx QoL scores with initial analysis scores post-LTx and changes in QoL over time were elucidated.
• The associations between self- and proxy-reports were presented.

Results

• The recruitment consisted of 10 pediatric LTx recipients (six male, mean age = 13.3 years).
• Analyses were completed pre-LTx (mean months = 4.8) and two times post-LTx (mean months 8.7 and 24.6, respectively).
• A marked variation was noted in the pre- and post-transplant total scores, for both self- and proxy-report, which remained consistent at a second assessment post-transplant (P = 0.018 and 0.028, respectively).