Disease Targeted Measures of Health Related Quality of Life (HRQOL) in Patients with Advanced Liver Disease Before and After Liver Transplantation

Diseases of the liver are becoming increasingly recognized due to their elevated prevalence and their impact on patients’ daily life (Younossi,1998; Armstrong, 2000). Besides, in recent years enormous progress in diagnosis and therapeutics has been made. Currently, liver transplantation is the treatment of choice in selected patients for acute and chronic liver failure (Tome, 2008; Desai, 2008). Liver transplantation has shown that it improves both survival and perceived changes of quality of life (Tome, 2008; Duffy, 2010). Survival after liver transplantation is excellent, both in the short and long term. Patient survival rates of approximately 85% after the first year and 75% five years after transplantation have been reported in the European Liver Transplant Registry (www.eltr.org).