Health-related quality of life in disease-free survivors of breast cancer with the general population.
BACKGROUND
Although most of the literature about health-related quality of life (HRQoL) focuses on breast cancer patients, few studies compared the HRQoL in disease-free breast cancer survivors with that of the general population.


METHODS
We administered the European Organization for Research and Treatment of Cancer Quality of Life Questionnaire Core 30 and Quality of Life Questionnaire Breast Cancer Module, McGill Quality of Life Questionnaire, Beck Depression Inventory, and Brief Fatigue Inventory to 1933 disease-free survivors for over 1 year after being diagnosed with stage 0 to III breast cancer. We performed multivariate-adjusted analyses in all HRQoL comparisons.


RESULTS
The scores for some health-related quality of life [corrected] HRQoL scales were comparable for both disease-free breast cancer survivors and the general female population, but [corrected] there was a [corrected] clinically significant difference between the two groups [corrected] in cognitive and social functioning, fatigue, insomnia, financial difficulties, body image, future perspective, breast symptoms, and arm symptoms. [corrected]


CONCLUSIONS
Disease-free survivors of breast cancer had good HRQoL, which was less affected by the type of treatment than it was by demographic characteristics, time since surgery, comorbidity, fatigue, and depression.
Ahn
S H
SH
Department of Surgery, Asan Medical Center, Seoul, Korea.
Park
B W
BW
Department of Surgery, Yonsei University Medical Center, Seoul, Korea.
Noh
D Y
DY
Department of Surgery, Seoul National University Hospital, Seoul, Korea.
Nam
S J
SJ
Department of Surgery, Samsung Medical Center, Seoul, Korea.
Lee
E S
ES
Center for Breast Cancer, National Cancer Center, Goyang, Gyeonggi, Korea.
Lee
M K
MK
Quality of Cancer Care Branch, Research Institute for National Cancer Control and Evaluation, National Cancer Center, Goyang, Gyeonggi, Korea.
Kim
S H
SH
Quality of Cancer Care Branch, Research Institute for National Cancer Control and Evaluation, National Cancer Center, Goyang, Gyeonggi, Korea.
Lee
K M
KM
Quality of Cancer Care Branch, Research Institute for National Cancer Control and Evaluation, National Cancer Center, Goyang, Gyeonggi, Korea.
Park
S M
SM
Quality of Cancer Care Branch, Research Institute for National Cancer Control and Evaluation, National Cancer Center, Goyang, Gyeonggi, Korea.
Yun
Y H
YH
Quality of Cancer Care Branch, Research Institute for National Cancer Control and Evaluation, National Cancer Center, Goyang, Gyeonggi, Korea. Electronic address: lawyun08@ncc.re.kr.
D000203:Activities of Daily Living; D001943:Breast Neoplasms / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000523:psychology / Q000628:therapy*; D018572:Disease-Free Survival; D005221:Fatigue; D005260:Female; D006304:Health Status; D006801:Humans; D008603:Mental Health; D008875:Middle Aged; D011788:Quality of Life; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires