OBJECTIVES

: Currently, there are limited data available on quality of life (QoL) among breast cancer patients in Taiwan. This study aims to evaluate QoL among this population stratified by patient’s characteristics and breast cancer treatments and to assess the factors associated with QoL.

METHODS

: We conducted a cross-sectional study during 2017 in Taiwan. Patients with estrogen receptor (ER)-positive and human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (HER2)-negative were recruited and responded to two QoL questionnaires: (1) European Organization for Research and Treatment of Cancer Quality of Life Questionnaire (EORTC QLQ-C30) for overall QoL of cancer and (2) its breast cancer supplementary measure (QLQ-BR23) for breast cancer specific QoL. The differences in QoL scores by patient’s characteristics and treatments were tested by Mann-Whitney U and Kruskal-Wallis statistics. Multiple linear regression analyses were performed to assess the association between QoL scores and breast cancer treatments, adjusted for patient’s characteristics.

RESULTS

: A total of 193 patients were recruited, with the mean age of patients of 55.52 (±9.00) and mean time since cancer diagnosis of 5.38 (±3.89) years. The majority of patients were postmenopausal. The proportions of patients at cancer stage 0, I, II, III and IV were 11.83%, 27.42%, 38.17%, 20.43%, and 2.15%, respectively. Univariate analyses showed two significant factors associated with QoL scores: breast cancer stage and underwent chemotherapy or not (p<0.05). However, receiving hormone therapy, radiotherapy, and mastectomy were not significantly associated with QoL. Multivariate analyses also indicated that patients received chemotherapy had significantly poor QoL compared to those not (p<0.05).

CONCLUSIONS

: Breast cancer stage and chemotherapy use were found to be significant factors associated with QoL scores among breast cancer patients in Taiwan.