1. The Mode of Detection Is Not Associated with Quality of Life in Women with Breast Cancer
- Author
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Hans-Werner Hense, J. Tio, Laura Khil, Marc-André Kurosinski, Barbara Krause-Bergmann, and Bettina Braun
- Subjects
Response rate (survey) ,medicine.medical_specialty ,education.field_of_study ,medicine.diagnostic_test ,business.industry ,Population ,Cancer ,Retrospective cohort study ,medicine.disease ,03 medical and health sciences ,Breast cancer screening ,0302 clinical medicine ,Breast cancer ,Oncology ,Quality of life ,030220 oncology & carcinogenesis ,Internal medicine ,Tumor stage ,medicine ,Surgery ,030212 general & internal medicine ,education ,business ,Research Article - Abstract
Introduction: Apart from saving lives, mammography screening programs (MSP) are expected to reduce negative side effects of treatment by detecting cancer earlier, when it is more responsive to less aggressive treatment. This study compared quality of life (QoL) among women with breast cancers that were detected either by screening mammography, as interval cancers, or clinically among women not participating in the MSP. Methods: Retrospective study of first-ever invasive breast cancers detected among MSP-eligible women aged 50–69 years between 2006 and 2012 in Münster, Germany. EORTC QLQ-C30 and -BR23 questionnaires were mailed to 1,399 cases still alive in 2015 (response rate 64.1%). Results: Women’s responses were obtained on average 6.1 years after diagnosis. Mean crude and age-adjusted scores for overall QoL, breast and body image (BBI), and five functional scales (FS) were comparable between groups of detection mode. Clearly lower adjusted means for most scores were observed in women with interval cancers, if time since diagnosis was less than 5 years. Cases younger than 60 years showed lower values for some FS, particularly among interval and screen-detected cases. Discussion/Conclusion: In summary, cases with breast cancer showed health-related score values that were similar to the general population of the same age. There was also no indication that mode of detection markedly influenced these scores. However, after adjusting for tumor stage and other influential factors, screening participants appeared more susceptible to score declines after a diagnosis of cancer than non-participants.
- Published
- 2019