Abstract P4-11-12: Quality of life, anxiety and depression during treatment of ductal carcinoma in situ and invasive breast cancer
Authors: Young-Afat DA , Gregorowitsch ML , Pignol J-P , van Gils CH , van Vulpen M , van den Bongard DJ , Verkooijen HM 
Published: May 2016

INTRODUCTION

Patients with ductal carcinoma in situ (DCIS) have excellent overall survival rates. Yet, previous studies suggested that quality of life (QoL) between patients with DCIS and patients with early-invasive breast cancer (early-IBC) are similar after treatment. We compared anxiety, depression and quality of life of patients with DCIS and patients with early-IBC during treatment, at the initiation of postsurgical radiotherapy.

METHODS

We conducted this study within a prospective observational cohort of breast cancer patients indicated to receive adjuvant radiation treatment at the department of Radiation Oncology at the University Medical Center Utrecht, the Netherlands ('the UMBRELLA cohort'). At the time of inclusion all cohort participants consented to the collection of clinical and patient reported outcomes (PROMs) at regular intervals. Patient reported outcomes on QoL (i.e. EORTC QLQ-C30) and anxiety and depression (i.e. HADS) were collected at the start of postsurgical radiotherapy. All patients who were diagnosed between October 2013 and January 2015 with DCIS or early-IBC (i.e. pT1 and pT2 without lymph node involvement) were included in this analysis.

To analyze differences in mean levels of PROMs (i.e. anxiety and depression, QoL) between patients with DCIS and early-IBC, two sample t-tests were used.

Differences in proportions of patients with high anxiety or high depressive scores (i.e. scores ≥11) were analyzed with the Pearson-Chi square test. We compared PROMS of DCIS and early-IBC patients with those of patients with advanced-invasive breast cancer from the UMBRELLA cohort using analyses of variance (ANOVA).

RESULTS

Forty-six patients were diagnosed with DCIS and 227 with early-IBC. DCIS and early-IBC patients did not show statistically significant differences in levels of anxiety (mean DCIS 4.5, early-IBC 5.2, p=0.18), depression (mean DCIS 2.6, early-IBC 3.0, p=0.73) or QoL (mean DCIS 78.3, early-IBC 74.7 p=0.70). Seven percent of women with DCIS women reported severe anxious symptoms, compared to 8% in women with early-IBC (p=0.22). Severe symptoms of depression were seen in 2% of DCIS patients and 4% of early-IBC (p=0.30).

Patients with advanced invasive breast cancer (n=118) reported significantly higher anxiety (mean 6.3, p&lt;0.005) and depression (mean 4.6, p&lt;0.001) scores and poorer QoL levels (69.9) as compared to patients with DCIS and early-invasive breast cancer.

CONCLUSION

Despite excellent survival probabilities and less invasive treatment, women with DCIS report similar levels of anxiety, depression and quality of life during treatment as compared to women with early-invasive breast cancer.

Citation Format: Young-Afat DA, Gregorowitsch ML, Pignol J-P, van Gils CH, van Vulpen M, van den Bongard DJ, Verkooijen HM. Quality of life, anxiety and depression during treatment of ductal carcinoma in situ and invasive breast cancer. [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the Thirty-Eighth Annual CTRC-AACR San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium: 2015 Dec 8-12; San Antonio, TX. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2016;76(4 Suppl):Abstract nr P4-11-12.