Assessment of quality of life in breast cancer patients at a tertiary care hospital

Abstract

Objective: Breast cancer is one of the most important cancers among women across the world as well as in India and therefore there is a great need to evaluate Quality of Life (QoL). Hence, we carried out a study that could give us an idea to predict the affecting factors on QoL among women with breast cancer. Materials and Methods: The study was carried out in MGM Hospital, which is located at Warangal, Andhra Pradesh, India. We assessed the overall QoL, symptoms of patients affected by breast cancer by using QoL questionnaires such as EORTC QLQ C-30, EORTC QLQ-BR23, on ≤2 cycle as Review-I and on ≥5 cycles as Review-II. Results: In the functional scale of breast cancer patients, physical, role function, future perspective and in symptom scale, fatigue, insomnia, arm symptoms and upset by hair loss were found to be significantly affected (P < 0.05). Global Health Status was mainly influenced by physical, social function, body image, future perspective, insomnia, breast and arm symptoms (P < 0.005). Conclusion: These findings have shown that there exists a strong correlation between the length of treatment and the QoL among breast cancer patients. Future interventions should target each specific aspect of QoL.

Keywords

• Breast cancer
• functional scale
• quality of life
• symptomology
• treatment