Health-related quality of life in breast cancer patients with lymphedema who survived more than one year after surgery.
OBJECTIVE
To identify the influence of lymphedema on health-related quality of life (HRQOL) more than 1 year after breast cancer surgery.


METHODS
Ninety-six breast cancer patients who survived more than 1 year after surgery and 104 members of the general population were recruited. Patients were divided into 2 groups according to the presence of lymphedema. HRQOL was evaluated with the Short-Form 36-Item Health Survey.


RESULTS
THERE WERE NO STATISTICALLY SIGNIFICANT DIFFERENCES IN ANY SCALES BETWEEN GROUPS: groups of breast cancer survivors with and without lymphedema. Compared with the general population, breast cancer survivors had lower quality of life scores in all scales, although the vitality and mental health scales did not differ from chance variation at the 5% level.


CONCLUSIONS
In this study, the presence of lymphedema in breast cancer patients who survived over 1 year after surgery might not affect the quality of life. However quality of life of breast cancer survivors is lower than in general population except for some mental health components.
Department of Rehabilitation Medicine, Kyungpook National University College of Medicine, Daegu, Korea.
So Hyun
SH
Lee
Yu-Sun
YS
Min
Ho Yong
HY
Park
Tae-Du
TD
Jung
Breast neoplasms; Lymphedema; Quality of life