Quality of life after organ transplantation

Organ transplants are being conducted with increasing frequency. It is generally known that these procedures increase length of life, but less is known about the quality of that life. In this paper, the literature pertaining to quality of life of patients with kidney, pancreas, heart, heart-lung, liver and bone marrow transplants is reviewed. On the basis of this review, it seems that quality of life after kidney and heart transplantation is very good, when compared to the pretransplant state. However, more research is required to examine quality of life of recipients of other types of transplantation. There are many issues that pertain to measurement of quality of life that remain to be addressed. These include: definitions of quality of life, dimensions of quality of life, expectations of quality of life and clinical assessment of quality of life.