71779 - Health-related quality of life by type of breast surgery in women with primary breast cancer: prospective longitudinal cohort study
Kim Gulis, Julia Ellbrant, Pär-Ola Bendahl, Tor Svensjö, Lisa RydénAbstract
Introduction
Health-related quality of life (HRQoL) and patient-related outcome measures for patients with cancer have gained increased interest over the last decade. However, few prospective studies with longitudinal data evaluated HRQoL in patients with breast cancer. This study aimed to investigate how HRQoL changed from the time of diagnosis to 1 year post breast cancer surgery for the main surgical techniques.
Method
This prospective longitudinal single-centre study included 340 patients with primary breast cancer diagnosed in 2019–2020 who underwent surgery. Patients completed a HRQoL questionnaire (Breast-Q) at baseline. One year post surgery, they completed the Breast-Q a second time, the EORTC Quality of life questionnaire (QLQ)-C30 and the QLQ-BR23. Analysis of variance and Kruskal-Wallis tests were used to evaluate the differences in HRQoL between surgical groups. Analysis of covariance with robust standard errors was used to adjust for confounders.
Result
Patients that had partial mastectomy or oncoplastic partial mastectomy were more satisfied with their breasts (P<0.001), had a better body image (P=0.006) and higher sexual functioning scores (P=0.027) than patients who had a mastectomy with/without reconstruction. The oncoplastic and mastectomy with reconstruction groups had more breast symptoms than other groups (p<0.001), and the mastectomy group had the least symptoms from the chest area.
Discussion
Partial mastectomy and oncoplastic partial mastectomy have the best outcomes in terms of breast satisfaction, body image and sexual functioning. This highlights the importance of preserving the breast when feasible and underscores that breast reconstruction is not equal to breast conservation.