Changing trends and influencing factors of the quality of life of chemotherapy patients with breast cancer

摘要

Objective: To understand the changing trajectory of quality of life(QOL) during the treatment courses of breast cancer patients during chemotherapy and to investigate the factors in each treatment course that affect QOL.Methods: The M.D. Anderson Symptom Inventory Scale, the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale(HADS), and the Functional Assessment of Cancer Therapy-Breast(FACT-B) scale were used to perform a survey on 174 breast cancer patients who received the TAC(docetaxel, Adriamycin, and cyclophosphamide) chemotherapy regimen before postoperative chemotherapy and 5-7 days after each chemotherapy course.Results: The QOL scores of the breast cancer patients were the lowest before the postoperative chemotherapy(81.2 ± 19.6) and the highest after the second chemotherapy course(94.5 ± 14.4). After the fourth and fifth chemotherapy courses, the scores were much lower again, with values of 82.7 ± 13.9and 82.6 ± 13.1, respectively. The scores improved again after the sixth chemotherapy course(93.9 ± 18.7). Furthermore, each treatment course had different related symptoms that affected the QOL of the patients.Conclusions: More attention should be paid to the changing trajectory of QOL of patients in all treatment courses and to the influence of treatment-related symptoms on the QOL of patients; moreover, interventions should be adopted by medical care personnel to increase QOL in cancer patients.