Quality of life after solid organ transplantation

In patients who receive a solid organ transplant, interest at present centers on long-term results and is directed more toward patient and graft survival and health-related quality of life (HRQoL). Improvement in HRQoL after receiving a transplant is a fact; but the studies should be treated with caution, as only some of them correct the results for different confounding variables and the fluctuations of the case-mix variables in the different samples and treatment groups counsel prudence.Several factors, especially those attributable to medication, affect the HRQoL of transplanted patients; and their identification and evaluation open up new possibilities for actions designed to modify their impact and improve HRQoL. In addition, some variables predict HRQoL in solid organ transplanted patients.There exist several modalities of economic evaluation. Cost-utility analysis is one of these and uses years of life adjusted for quality for measuring the results in nonmonetary units, simultaneously incorporating the increment in the quantity of life (reduction in mortality) and the increase in quality of life.