Age-Related Psychosocial Distress among Slovak Breast Cancer Patients Surviving Three Years after Breast-Conserving Surgery

Viera Bencova, Juraj Svec, Svec Krajcovicova, Vladimir Bella, Vladimir Krcmery
2013 Advances in Cancer Research & Treatment  
Objective: The objective of this prospective study was to evaluate the age-related long-term psychosocial morbidity development and health-related quality of life outcomes among diseasefree outdoor breast cancer patients previously treated for early-stage breast cancer by breast conserving surgery (BCS). Methods: 140 eligible disease-free breast cancer patients previously treated by BCS or modified radical mastectomy (MRM) and surviving without tumor recurrence and any comorbidities for three
more » ... ars after surgery were recruited for the survey. The assessment was conducted one and three years after surgery using the standardised EORTC Quality of Life QLQ C3O.3 questionnaire, the breast cancer specific module QLQ BR-23 and the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HADS) questionnaire. Results: Scoring of cancer-specific quality of life and psychosocial morbidity over the time between one and three years after surgery have shown that patients with advanced breast cancer previously treated by modified radical mastectomy (MRM) suffered from steady-state level of psychosocial distress and low quality of life perception during the entire period of observation. On the other hand, nearly 70% of breast cancer patients treated by BCS were surviving without profound impact onto psychosocial status and health-related quality of life during the entire observation period. However, scoring of distress symptoms brought evidence indicating that nearly one third of patients surviving more than three years after BCS were suffering from emotional distress due to increasing anxiosity, nervousness, uncertainty and fear about future. Patients with higher psychosocial burden mainly belong to younger population aging between 35 to 50 years. In these patients, the health-related quality of life scores were lower and sometimes comparable with those of MRM-treated patients. The low quality of life and increased psychosocial distress in young BCS-treated breast cancer survivors seems not to be related to disease variables and physical symptoms caused by cancer treatment. Conclusion: Psychosocial distress is still present in BCS-treated breast cancer survivors belonging mainly to younger age population and may be increased during the survival time. The need to pay more attention to psychosocial care of outdoor breast cancer survivors being under long-term clinical control is emphasized.
doi:10.5171/2013.533929 fatcat:et5ygyh2kbfhnir4ziya2l7evm