Physical Impairments Related to Myeloid and Lymphoid Malignancies

Hematologic malignancies affecting blood, bone marrow and lymph nodes comprise neoplasm of either myeloid or lymphoid blood stem cells origin. While a lymphoid stem cell becomes a white blood cell, a myeloid stem cell becomes one of the red blood cells, white blood cells or platelets types. Due to the this reason, defects in myeloid stem cells result in acute and chronic myelogenous leukemia, myelodysplastic syndromes or myeloproliferative diseases, whereas defects in lymphoid stem cells result in lymphomas, lymphocytic leukemias or myeloma. On the other hand, most of these hematologic malignancies are characterized with high rate of morbidity and mortality because of both the nature and various toxic treatments of neoplasm including chemotherapy with multiple agents, corticosteroids and hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HSCT). Especially after allogeneic-HSCT, recipients experience more impairments in pulmonary functions, respiratory and peripheral muscle strength, exercise capacity, perception of fatigue and quality of life scores which make their lives difficult in terms of actively trying to return to the their life. However, although it has been known that each hematologic disease has a different negative impact on varied body systems or organs after HSCT, little attention has been paid to the comparatively investigation of impacts of myeloid and lymphoid hematological malignancies on pulmonary functions, muscle strength, exercise capacity, fatigue and quality of life in allogeneic-HSCT recipients. Hence, current study aimed to comparatively investigate physical impairments between recipients with hematologic malignancies according to myeloid and lymphoid type disorder.

Recipients undergone allogeneic-HSCT (˃100 days post-HSCT status) were included. Hematologic malignancies were grouped as myeloid and lymphoid. Pulmonary functions (spirometry), peripheral (dynamometer) and respiratory muscle strength (MIP-MEP) (mouth pressure device), exercise capacity (Modified Incremental Shuttle Walk Test (ISWT)), and quality of life (European Organization for Research and Treatment of Cancer Quality of Life Questionnaire) were evaluated.

Inclusion criteria

• 18-65 years of age,
• being an allogeneic-HSCT recipient who was at minimum 100 days status after transplantation
• receiving optimal standard medical therapy including immunosuppressive agents, antibiotics, supplements and other drugs.

Exclusion criteria

• having cognitive disorders, orthopedic or neurological disease with a potential to affect assessment of exercise capacity, visual impairments and mucositis which may prevent measurements, comorbidities such as asthma, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), acute respiratory or other infections, acute hemorrhage, low hemoglobin values (≤8 g/L) and low platelet count (≤10.000 mm3).