The relationship between the predicted risk of death and psychosocial functioning among women with early-stage breast cancer
- Resource Type
- Original Paper
- Authors
- Metcalfe, Kelly A.; Candib, Alexandra; Giannakeas, Vasily; Eisen, Andrea; Poll, Aletta; McCready, David; Cil, Tulin; Wright, Frances C.; Armel, Susan; Ott, Karen; Sun, Ping; Narod, Steven A.
- Source
- Breast Cancer Research and Treatment. 186(1):177-189
- Subject
- Distress
Breast cancer
Mortality
Anxiety
Risk of death
- Language
- English
- ISSN
- 0167-6806
1573-7217
Purpose: Many women with early-onset breast cancer experience adverse psychological sequelae which impact on their quality of life. We sought to correlate levels of anxiety and cancer-related distress in women with breast cancer shortly after surgery and one year after treatment with the estimated risk of death.Methods: We studied 596 women with Stage I to III breast cancer. For each woman we estimated the five-year risk of death based on SEER data from 2010 to 2019. For each woman we measured anxiety and cancer-related distress levels shortly after surgery and one year later.Results: The mean estimated five-year survival was 95%. At one week post-surgery, 59% of women had a clinically significant level of anxiety and 74% had a clinically significant level of cancer-related distress. There was no correlation between the objective risk of death and the level of anxiety or distress, at one week or at one year.Conclusions: Many women diagnosed with early-stage breast cancers experience significant levels of anxiety and distress. The emotional response to a breast cancer diagnosis is not related to the risk of death per se and other factors should be explored.