Late psychosocial effects of conditioning for BMT

This study was designed to assess psychosocial difficulties in long-term survivors of bone marrow transplantation (BMT) as a possible result of the type of pre-BMT conditioning. Eighty-three patients replied to questionnaires concerning several dimensions of quality of life. These subjects were assigned to one of three treatment groups: subjects who had received cyclophosphamide (CY) and total body irradiation (TBI) (n = 43): subjects who had received the BEAM protocol consisting of busulphan, etoposide, cytarabine, and melphalan (n = 31); and subjects who had received the University College Hospital (UCH) protocol consisting of cyclophosphamide, doxorubicin, carmustine and thioguanine (n = 9). The results indicated that, although overall psychosocial adjustment seemed to be similar in all three groups of patients, daily activities were more impaired and psychological/psychosomatic symptoms were more prevalent in the combination chemotherapy groups. Distressing physical and psychosocial symptoms usually affect quality of life and the incorporation of quality of life measures in clinical trials of cancer treatments is of great importance.