LONG-TERM QUALITY-OF-LIFE AFTER BREAST-CANCER - COMPARISON OF 8-YEAR SURVIVORS WITH POPULATION-CONTROLS

Purpose: Quality of life of breast cancer survivors 8 years after diag nosis was compared with that among similarly aged women who had never confronted cancer (controls). Methods: Survivors of a consecutive seri es of 227 breast cancer patients first treated in 1984 were approached for this study. Random-digit dialing was used to identify controls wi th the same age and residential distribution as the survivors. Quality of life was assessed in terms of physical health, functional status, psychologic distress, and social functioning. Results: Participation w as obtained from 96% (n = 124) of 129 eligible survivors and 61% (n = 262) of 427 potentially eligible controls. Consistently smaller propor tions of survivors reported positive quality-of-life outcomes compared with controls, but these differences were generally small and nonsign ificant statistically. When limited to women who remained free of dise ase over the entire follow-up period (n = 98), survivors' quality of l ife was similar to that among controls, with the exception of arm prob lems and sexual satisfaction for those women who lived with a partner. In contrast, survivors who developed recurrence or new primary breast cancer (n = 26) experienced a worse quality of life in all domains ex cept social functioning. Conclusion: In most domains and for women wit hout further disease events after diagnosis, quality of life does not seem to be permanently and globally impaired by breast cancer. Consequ ently, breast cancer survivors who remain free of disease probably do not need organized late psychosocial follow-up to improve qualify of l ife. However, arm problems and sexuality are two areas in which additi onal effort may be still needed to improve quality of life of long-ter m survivors. (C) 1998 by American Society of Clinical Oncology.