[Quality-of-life assessment in patients with pulmonary diseases].

Introduction: Quality-of-life assessment as a measure of clinical and therapeutic outcome, is increasingly used in different branches of medicine. In contrast to conventional indicators of the disease and its objective outcomes, health related quality of life (HRQL) focuses on the patient's own assessment. This provides for the more active involvement of a patient, where the advantages of certain medication or therapeutic regimes over another are considered by a doctor. QUALITY-OF-LIFE QUESTIONNAIRES: Quality-of-life questionnaires have been developed to assess health related quality of life, and provide methodology for processing and interpretation. This kind of assessment is proved useful not only in clinical drug trials, but also efficacy in routine medical practice and in the evaluation of the health services. Quality-of-life assessment is widely used in all chronic pulmonary diseases, especially in asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary diseases. Sarcoidosis is a great challenge for researchers in quality of life, since it is a chronic multisystem disease, not only a respiratory disorder.

Conclusion: Evaluation of quality of life in sarcoidosis patients is possible only using generic health questionnaires. However, in 2003, validated disease-specific questionnaires for sarcoidosis were developed, and they will make our approach to these patients easier.