Prospective evaluation of patient reported outcome measures (PROMs) and correlation with clinical parameters of...

To evaluate different patient reported outcome measures (PROMs) and their relationship with distinct clinical parameters in patients with and without chronic ocular graft-versus-host disease (coGVHD) after allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation.

In this prospective cross-sectional study, 68 patients after alloHSCT were included and allocated in two groups: with coGVHD and without coGVHD (n = 34 each). Clinical ophthalmological parameters were assessed and the following PROMs were used: Ocular Surface Disease Index (OSDI), National Eye Institute Visual Function Questionnaire (NEI-VFQ-25), Syndrome Assessment in Dry Eye Questionnaire (SANDE), Generalized Anxiety Disorder Scale 7 (GAD-7). Statistical analysis was performed by using group adjusted correlation and multiple linear regression.

Patients with coGVHD had worse scores compared to patients without coGVHD. PROMs were highly correlated with each other. Diagnosis of coGVHD was a highly influential predictor for impairment in quality of life. No correlations between PROM scores and single clinical parameters were found.

This study confirms the importance of PROMs in patients with coGVHD. Quality of life (QOL) is clearly impaired in affected individuals compared to patients after alloHSCT without coGVHD. The entirety of all clinical features is the major influencing factor of QOL impairment whereas single parameters alone seem to have no measurable effect. SANDE showed comparable results to OSDI and is explicitly recommended in clinical routine.