Quality of life trajectories during the first three years after diagnosis of breast cancer: the NEON-BC study

Autores da FMUP

• Natália Da Costa Araújo

  Autor

• Nuno Miguel De Sousa Lunet

  Autor

Participantes de fora da FMUP

• Lopes Conceicao, L
• Brandao, M
• Severo, M.
• Dias, T
• Peleteiro, B.
• Fontes, F.
• Pereira, S

Unidades de investigação

• Ciências da Saúde Pública e Forenses, e Educação Médica

Abstract

Background We aimed to identify and characterize quality of life trajectories up to 3 years after breast cancer diagnosis. Methods A total of 460 patients were evaluated at baseline (before treatments), and after 1- and 3-years. Patient-reported outcomes, including quality of life (European Organization for Research and Treatment of Cancer Quality of Life Questionnaire Core 30, QLQ-C30), anxiety, depression and sleep quality, were assessed in all evaluations. Model-based clustering was used to identify quality of life trajectories. Results We identified four trajectories without intersection during 3 years. The two trajectories characterized by better quality of life depicted relatively stable scores; in the other trajectories, quality of life worsened until 1 year, though in one of them the score at 3 years improved. Sociodemographic and clinical characteristics at baseline did not differ between trajectories, except for mastectomy, which was higher in the worst trajectory. Anxiety, depression and poor sleep quality increased from the best to the worst trajectory. Conclusions The type of surgery and the variation of other patient-reported outcomes were associated with the course of quality of life over 3 years. More research to understand the heterogeneity of individual trajectories within these major patterns of variation is needed.

Keywords

• breast neoplasms; duster analysis; patient-reported outcome measures; quality of life