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Breast cancer survivors: physical and mental quality of life 10 years following diagnosis, a case-control study

  • Epidemiology
  • Published:
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Abstract

Purpose

Improvements in diagnosis and treatment of Breast Cancer (BC) have resulted in an increase in the life expectancy of survivors and in the importance of quality of life in BC survivorship care. The current study aimed to assess the Health-Related Quality Of Life (HRQOL) of BC survivors and to investigate the association of comorbidities with HRQOL compared to a group of women with no history of cancer.

Methods

Women were residents of the central district in Israel, the case group included 250 women diagnosed with BC between 1999 and 2003, with no prior cancer history and no evidence of disease after 8–12 years. The comparison group included 250 women with no cancer history, individually matched to cases by age and area of residence. Data were collected through in-person interviews, and HRQOL was assessed using the Short Form-36 (SF-36) questionnaire. Regression analyses were performed evaluating the influence of demographic, socioeconomic, lifestyle characteristics and comorbidities on physical and mental HRQOL.

Results

The physical and mental summary scores means, were 48.5 ± 11.1 and 49.2 ± 10.8 compared to 51.5 ± 10.2 and 50.9 ± 10.6, in BC survivors and the comparison group, respectively (p = 0.002 and p = 0.097). BC survivors and controls did not differ in number and type of comorbidities and for both groups a negative association was seen with HRQOL. Controlling for age, income, number of comorbidities, BMI and physical activity, BC survivor had decreased physical (b = −2.49, p = 0.001) and mental summary scores (b = −1.27, p = 0.18).

Conclusion

HRQOL of BC survivors should gain more attention in the area of cancer care, especially when comorbidities are present.

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Data availability

The datasets generated during and/or analysed during the current study are not publicly available due to possible compromise of individual privacy as the data include many personal attributes of the participants within a distinct time period and geographic area. Data are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

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Funding

This study was supported by the Israel National Institute for Health Policy Research (Grant Number: 2011/50/E).

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Cancer & Radiation Epidemiology Unit, Gertner Institute for Epidemiology & Health Policy Research, Sheba Medical Center, 5262000, Tel-Hashomer, Israel

    Angela Chetrit, Sivan Ben-Avraham, Lori Mandelzweig, Tova Amitai & Siegal Sadetzki

  2. Oncology Service Line, Maccabi Health Services, Tel Aviv, Israel

    Nava Siegelmann Danieli

  3. Israel National Cancer Registry, Ministry of Health, Sheba Medical Center, 5262000, Tel-Hashomer, Israel

    Barbara Silverman

  4. Sackler Faculty of Medicine, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv, Israel

    Nava Siegelmann Danieli, Barbara Silverman & Siegal Sadetzki

  5. Ministry of Health, Jerusalem, Israel

    Siegal Sadetzki

Authors
  1. Angela Chetrit
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  2. Sivan Ben-Avraham
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  3. Lori Mandelzweig
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  4. Tova Amitai
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  5. Nava Siegelmann Danieli
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  6. Barbara Silverman
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  7. Siegal Sadetzki
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Contributions

SS: conceptualization, supervision, funding acquisition, interpretation of data and writing—review and editing. LM: conceptualization, funding acquisition and writing—original draft. AC: conceptualization, formal analysis, methodology, interpretation of data, writing—original draft and writing—review and editing. SBA: Interpretation of data, writing—original draft, visualization and writing—review and editing. TA: investigation, project administration, revising the article. NSD: resources, data curation, revising the article. BS: resources, data curation, revising the article.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Angela Chetrit.

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Conflict of interest

The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

Informed consent

informed consent was obtained from all participants included in the study.

Ethical approval

The questionnaire and methodology for this study was approved by the Institutional Review Boards of the Sheba Medical Center and Maccabi Healthcare Services.

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Chetrit, A., Ben-Avraham, S., Mandelzweig, L. et al. Breast cancer survivors: physical and mental quality of life 10 years following diagnosis, a case-control study. Breast Cancer Res Treat 188, 273–282 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10549-021-06156-0

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10549-021-06156-0

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