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Quality of Life (QoL) in Postmenopausal Breast Cancer Patients Receiving Adjuvant Hormonal Therapy

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Abstract

Background

The primary aim of this study was to compare quality of life of postmenopausal breast cancer women receiving adjuvant hormone therapy with those not receiving. The secondary aims were to investigate impact of vitamin D status and type of hormone therapy (letrozole vs tamoxifen) on quality of life.

Settings and Design

Tertiary care hospital, prospective study (March 2016 to September 2017).

Patients and Methods

Study included postmenopausal non-metastatic breast cancer women. Patients were divided in two groups: group 1 (n=120) receiving adjuvant hormone therapy and group 2 (n=93) not receiving hormone therapy. Patients filled Functional Assessment of Cancer Therapy-Breast (FACT–B) QoL questionnaire at enrolment and 6 month later. The scores were compared between the groups.

Results

Overall basal FACT-G (p=0.004), FACT-B (p=0.003), and all other quality of life subscales scores barring social well-being were significantly better in group 2 {physical well-being (p=0.002), social well-being (p=0.037), emotional well-being (p=0.028), functional well-being (p=<0.001)}. Follow-up scores in all subscales within both group improved significantly (p=<0.001), but significant difference between two groups persisted only for FACT-G (p=0.04), physical well-being (p=0.02), and functional well-being (p=<0.001) subscale. Except for social well-being subscale, vitamin D sufficient patients had significantly better scores than deficient patients. There was no significant difference among patients receiving either letrozole or tamoxifen except for better functional well-being (p=0.005) score in those receiving previous.

Conclusions

Adjuvant hormonal therapy irrespective of type and vitamin D deficiency contribute to inferior quality of life in postmenopausal breast cancer women.

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Acknowledgements

The authors acknowledge and thank “Functional Assessment of Chronic Illness Therapy (FACIT)” organization for the permission to use FACT-B Hindi questionnaire and also providing scoring material.

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Data is property of the Institute and would be made available on specific request.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Endocrine Surgery, Sanjay Gandhi Postgraduate Institute of Medical Sciences, Raebareli Road, Lucknow, 226 014, India

    Raouef Ahmed Bichoo, Anjali Mishra, Chand Gyan, Gaurav Agarwal, Amit Agarwal & Saroj Kanta Mishra

  2. Currently International Training Fellow in Breast, Castle Hill Hospital, Hull University Teaching Hospitals, NHS Trust, Hull, UK

    Raouef Ahmed Bichoo

  3. Department of Radiotherapy, Sanjay Gandhi Postgraduate Institute of Medical Sciences, Lucknow, India

    Punita Lal

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  1. Raouef Ahmed Bichoo
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Ethics declarations

Ethics Approval

The Institute Ethics Committee approved the study (2016-75-MCH-EXP).

Consent to Participate

Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.

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The manuscript publication is approved by all authors and by the responsible authorities where the work was carried out.

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The authors declare no competing interests.

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A part of this study was presented as poster in 77th Annual National Conference of the Association of Surgeons of India (ASICON 2017) held at Jaipur from December 26 to 30, 2017.

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Bichoo, R.A., Mishra, A., Lal, P. et al. Quality of Life (QoL) in Postmenopausal Breast Cancer Patients Receiving Adjuvant Hormonal Therapy. Indian J Surg 83 (Suppl 2), 461–467 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12262-021-02766-6

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12262-021-02766-6

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