title: Influence of socioeconomic status and BMI on the quality of life after mastectomy in Bangladeshi breast cancer patients in a public hospital.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  Quality of life after diagnosis and during treatment phases of breast cancer varies across individual to individual, country to country and from ethnicity to ethnicity. So factors affecting it are of growing research interest. The aim of the study was to investigate the influence of socioeconomic status and body mass index on the quality of life of breast cancer patients during the phases of treatment-before and after mastectomy.
  
  
  METHODS
  Two hundred and fifty-one women with breast cancer undergoing surgery were interviewed prior to and after mastectomy in National Institute of Cancer Research and Hospital, Dhaka from January 2012 to March 2013 using European Organization for Research and Treatment of Cancer Core Questionnaire (and QLQ-Br23). Socioeconomic factors like educational status, family income, occupation and body mass index were taken as investigating factors against global health status and breast cancer-related factors.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Significant reduction of the scores found that means deterioration of function in the following domains of the quality of life were found such as physical well-being (P = 0.019), emotional well-being (P = 0.035), cognitive status (P = 0.05) and the breast-specific subscales like BRBI (body image), BRBS (breast symptoms), BRAS (arm symptoms); (P = 0.013, 0.103, 0.015) was observed after surgery in lower income group. Worker group expressed also similar effect on the global health status/quality-of-life scales (P = 0.05, 0.043, 0.021) and breast subscales (P = 0.002, 0.027, 0.05), patients with lower body mass index also have a lower score also. Educational status does not affect the two groups. Younger age group patients expressed much distress.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Improvement of family income, nutritional status and improvement of working environment might have an impact on the improvement of the quality of life of breast cancer patients during the phases of treatment.
authors.affiliation: Department of Surgical Oncology, National Institute of Cancer Research and Hospital, Dhaka mizannicrh@gmail.com.
authors.forename: Md Mizanur
authors.initials: MM
authors.lastname: Rahman
authors.affiliation: Department of Medical Oncology, Shaheed Shurwardy Medical College, Dhaka.
authors.forename: Md Abul
authors.initials: MA
authors.lastname: Ahsan
authors.affiliation: Centre for Control of Chronic Diseases, ICDDRB, Dhaka.
authors.forename: Nazratun Nayeem
authors.initials: NN
authors.lastname: Monalisa
authors.affiliation: Department of Surgical Oncology, National Institute of Cancer Research and Hospital, Dhaka, Bangladesh.
authors.forename: Khadiza
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Rahman
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D001459:Bangladesh; D015992:Body Mass Index; D001943:Breast Neoplasms / Q000191:economics / Q000601:surgery*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008408:Mastectomy; D008875:Middle Aged; D011788:Quality of Life; D012959:Socioeconomic Factors; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: BMI; breast cancer; mastectomy; quality of life; socioeconomy