Fatigue in survivors of Childhood Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia

Background: The impact of therapy on psychosocial well-being is becoming more and more important as the survival rate for childhood Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia (ALL) increases. There is a need for extensive research on fatigue throughout therapy. However, little information about this subject is known after treatment of ALL. The present work aims to assess fatigue experienced by adolescents and children after successful management for childhood ALL and its effect on the Quality of Life (QoL). Methods: This cross-sectional comparative study included 30 children survivors of ALL and their parents. Another 30 healthy sex and age-matched children were recruited to serve as a control group. All survivors were conducted to complete history taking, full clinical examination, fatigue and QoL questionnaires. Results: There was a remarkable variation between self-reported and parent-proxy fatigue scales including general, cognitive, and total fatigue scores among the survivors group (All parent-proxy domains were remarkably higher than self-reported) (P<0.001). There was a substantial adverse relationship between survivor-reported QoL and survivor-reported total fatigue score (p<0.001). There was a remarkable adverse association between parent proxy QoL of survivors and parent proxy fatigue (p<0.001). Conclusion: This study suggests that adolescents and children survivors of ALL experience higher levels of fatigue compared to their healthy counterparts.