ORIGINAL ARTICLE Evaluation of Health Related Quality of Life in 6–18 Years Old Patients with Acute Leukemia during Chemotherapy Soheila Zareifar & Mohammad Reza Farahmandfar & Nader Cohan & Forough Modarresnia & Sezaneh Haghpanah Received: 13 December 2010 / Accepted: 3 May 2011 /Published online: 3 June 2011 # Dr. K C Chaudhuri Foundation 2011 Abstract Objective To evaluate the quality of life (QOL) of Iranian children with acute leukemia during chemotherapy. Methods One hundred patients between 6 to 18-years-old were selected by convenient sampling method. EORTC QLQ-C30 Questionnaire was completed by their parents’ help. Demographic information such as age, sex and type of leukemia were also collected. These data were evaluated by SPSS software, Chi-square and independent sample T test. The relation between different scales of questionnaire and variables was measured and final results were compared with reference values. Results In acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia patients QOL, physical and cognitive functions were lower in compar- ison with acute myelogenous leukemia and they had more fatigue, pain and insomnia. The patients between ages of 12–18-years-old had more financial difficulties and diarrhea and lower cognitive function in comparison with 6– 12-years-old patients. The present patients achieved higher scores than reference value, but they had more economic problem. Conclusions The patients had relatively good QOL. The lowest impression was in cognitive function and the highest was in emotional function. The patients mostly complained of financial difficulties and fatigue and rarely of diarrhea and constipation. It is necessary to do more researches related to health related QOL in pediatric patients. Keywords Leukemia . Chemotherapy . Quality of life . EORTC QLQ-C30 Introduction Leukemia is the most common malignant neoplasm in childhood, accounting for about 35% of all malignancies that occur in children <15-years of age [1]. Acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) and acute myelogenous leukemia (AML) account for about 77% and 11% of cases of childhood leukemia respectively. The current overall event free survival rates (EFS) of approximately 80% for ALL and 50% for AML have been due to the development of active chemotherapeutic agents, thus improving the understanding of how to combine and use these agents more effectively, and significant advances in supportive care [2, 3]. The judgment of whether therapies can be considered successful depends not only on eradication of leukemia and normal hematopoietic recovery but also on the quality of life (QOL) that survivor ’ s experience [3]. With increasingly sophisticated chemotherapy regimens being prescribed the quality of life of cancer patients has become a key outcome measure. Little has been reported concerning the experience of patients with hematological malignancy receiving chemotherapy [4]. Patients undergo- ing treatment for hematological malignancies suffer from high levels of undetected anxiety and depression [5, 6]. In 1986, the European Organization for Research and Treatment of Cancer (EORTC) initiated a research pro- gram to develop an integrated, modular approach for evaluating the quality of life of patients participating in international clinical trials. A ‘core’ instrument, the QLQ- C30 has been designed to cover a range of QOL issues relevant to a broad spectrum of cancer patients. It is intended S. Zareifar (*) : M. R. Farahmandfar : N. Cohan : F. Modarresnia : S. Haghpanah Hematology Research Center, Nemazee Hospital, Shiraz University of Medical Sciences, Shiraz, Iran e-mail: zareifars@sums.ac.ir Indian J Pediatr (February 2012) 79(2):177–182 DOI 10.1007/s12098-011-0483-0