Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2008 Nov 11:8:330.
doi: 10.1186/1471-2407-8-330.

Quality of life in patients with breast cancer before and after diagnosis: an eighteen months follow-up study

Ali Montazeri  1 , Mariam Vahdaninia, Iraj Harirchi, Mandana Ebrahimi, Fatemeh Khaleghi, Soghra Jarvandi
Affiliations

Quality of life in patients with breast cancer before and after diagnosis: an eighteen months follow-up study

Ali Montazeri et al. BMC Cancer. .

Abstract

Background: Measuring quality of life in breast cancer patients is of importance in assessing treatment outcomes. This study examined the impact of breast cancer diagnosis and its treatment on quality of life of women with breast cancer.

Methods: This was a prospective study of quality of life in breast cancer patients. Quality of life was measured using the European Organization for Research and Treatment of Cancer Quality of Life Questionnaire (EORTC QLQ-C30) and its breast cancer supplementary measure (QLQ-BR23) at three points in time: baseline (pre diagnosis), three months after initial treatment and one year after completion of treatment (in all 18 months follow-up). At baseline the questionnaires were administered to all suspected identified patients while both patients and the interviewer were blind to the final diagnosis. Socio-demographic and clinical data included: age, education, marital status, disease stage and initial treatment. Repeated measure analysis was performed to compare quality of life differences over the time.

Results: In all, 167 patients diagnosed with breast cancer. The mean age of breast cancer patients was 47.2 (SD = 13.5) years and the vast majority (82.6%) underwent mastectomy. At eighteen months follow-up data for 99 patients were available for analysis. The results showed there were significant differences in patients' functioning and global quality of life at three points in time (P < 0.001). Although there were deteriorations in patients' scores for body image and sexual functioning, there were significant improvements for breast symptoms, systematic therapy side effects and patients' future perspective (P < 0.05).

Conclusion: The findings suggest that overall breast cancer patients perceived benefit from their cancer treatment in long-term. However, patients reported problems with global quality of life, pain, arm symptoms and body image even after 18 months following their treatments. In addition, most of the functional scores did not improve.

PubMed Disclaimer

References

    1. Perry SH, Kowalski TL, Chang CH. Quality of life assessment in women with breast cancer: benefits, acceptability and utilization. Health Qual Life Outcomes. 2007;5:24–38. doi: 10.1186/1477-7525-5-24. - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Grimison P, Stockler MR. Quality of life and adjuvant systemic therapy for early-stage breast cancer. Expert Rev Anticancer Ther. 2007;7:1123–34. doi: 10.1586/14737140.7.8.1123. - DOI - PubMed
    1. Stewart BW, Paul Kleihues P. World Cancer Report. Lyon, France, International Agency Research on Cancer; 2003.
    1. Montazeri A. Health-related quality of life in breast cancer patients: a bibliographic review of the literature from 1974 to 2007. J Exp Clin Cancer Res. 2008;27:32. doi: 10.1186/1756-9966-27-32. - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Mols F, Vingerhoets AJJM, Coebergh JW, Poll-Franse LV van de. Quality of life among long-term breast cancer survivors: a systematic review. Eur J Cancer. 2005;41:2613–2619. doi: 10.1016/j.ejca.2005.05.017. - DOI - PubMed

Publication types