PT - JOURNAL ARTICLE AU - Mikkel Faurschou AU - Lene Sigaard AU - Jakob Bue Bjorner AU - Bo Baslund TI - Impaired Health-related Quality of Life in Patients Treated for Wegener's Granulomatosis AID - 10.3899/jrheum.100167 DP - 2010 Aug 03 TA - The Journal of Rheumatology PG - jrheum.100167 4099 - http://www.jrheum.org/content/early/2010/07/29/jrheum.100167.short 4100 - http://www.jrheum.org/content/early/2010/07/29/jrheum.100167.full AB - Objective To investigate whether patients withWegener’s granulomatosis (WG) experience reduced health-related quality of life (HRQOL) after accomplishment of remission, and to study the influence of WG-associated organ damage on HRQOL. Methods Sixty-eight patients with inactive WG and 680 randomly selected, age- and sex-matched controls of the Danish background population completed the Medical Outcomes Study Short-Form 36 (SF-36) survey for evaluation of HRQOL. Irreversible organ damage attributable to WG and/or its treatment was assessed using the Vasculitis Damage Index (VDI). Results The median disease duration was 7.5 (range 1–26) years in the WG group, and the median total VDI score was 2.0 (range 0–7). Compared to controls,WG patients reported impaired HRQOL reflected by significantly lower SF-36 physical component summary scores (PCS) and mental component summary scores (MCS) (p < 0.001) and by significantly lower scores in 7 out of 8 SF-36 subscales (p ≤ 0.001). In theWG group, no statistically significant correlations were found between the different SF-36 scores and the total VDI score, number of organ systems affected by damage, disease duration, or number of WG relapses. Patients with organ failure or other major forms of damage did not report significantly lower HRQOL than less severely affected patients. Conclusion WG patients experience significantly reduced HRQOL even in phases with no apparent vasculitis disease activity. Our data indicate that the level of HRQOL does not correlate well with the extent of vasculitis-associated organ damage in WG.