JMIR Publications

ABSTRACT

Background:

The increases in survival rate and time after lung transplantation (LTx) produce a concern shift toward how to improve patients' quality of life (QoL).We aims to assess QoL and track its changes for patients underwent LTx.

Objective:

This study aims to assess QoL and track its changes for patients underwent LTx.

Methods:

This small-scale prospective cohort study enrolled 51 patients who underwent lung transplant at the Xi’an Lung Transplantation Center in China, from June 2023 to November 2024. We assessed the changes in QoL including symptoms, functioning, health perception, and well-being before and serially up to 6 months after LTx using a specific LTx-QoL questionnaire based on self-reported outcomes.

Results:

A total of 122 interviews from 42 patients were included in this study, with a median of two interviews for each patient. The most common diagnosis was idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (55.4%, n=31) and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease(25.0%, n=14). In the 6 months follow-up, the largest decrease in symptom scores was observed in chest tightness (-35.4%), loss of appetite (-30.6%), and shortness of breath (-29.6%). Furthermore, the average scores of functioning impairments and heath perceptions decreased by more than 30% and 50%, respectively. In contrast, the average score of overall well-being peaked 28.0±12.5 at postoperative 1 month and then decreased by 25.3% by 6 months.

Conclusions:

While LTx improves significantly the QoL of end-stage lung diseases patients, dynamic changes of QoL in symptom, functioning, health perception and well-being over 6 months require a strengthened routine monitoring and timely capture early intervention signals.