Changes in the quality of life of early breast cancer patients and comparison with the normative Slovenian population

FIGURE 1.

FIGURE 2.

Clinical characteristics of participants at beginning of the study and after one-year post-chemotherapy

Characteristic	At inclusion-before chemotherapy (n = 102) n (%)	One year after end of chemotherapy (n = 71) n (%)
Tumour stage
T1	6 (45.1)	32 (44.4)
T2	43 (42.2)	33 (45.8)
T3	13 (12.7)	7 (9.7)
Lymph node stage
N0	43 (42.2)	31 (43.1)
N1	38 (37.3)	30 (41.7)
N2	12 (11.8)	9 (12.5)
N3	9 (8.8)	2 (2.8)
Tumour subtype
Luminal A-like	12 (11.8)	7 (9.7)
Luminal B-like	47 (46.1)	35 (48.6)
Luminal B HER2 positive	19 (18.6)	14 (19.4)
HER2 positive	8 (7.8)	6 (8.3)
Triple-negative	16 (15.7)	10 (13.9)
Type of surgery
Breast-conserving surgery + Sentinel node biopsy	37 (36.3)	28 (38.9)
Breast-conserving surgery + Axillary dissection	14 (13.7)	11 (15.3)
Mastectomy + Sentinel node biopsy	23 (22.5)	15 (20.8)
Mastectomy + Axillary dissection	28 (27.5)	18 (25.0)
Breast reconstruction
None	78 (76.5)	55 (76.4)
Deep inferior flap	13 (12.7)	10 (13.9)
Tissue expander, followed by silicone implant	11 (10.8)	7 (9.7)
Chemotherapy type
Anthracyclines and taxanes	70 (68.7)	51 (70.8)
Anthracyclines only	19 (18.6)	13 (18.1)
Taxanes only	10 (9.8)	6 (8.3)
CMF	3 (2.9)	2 (2.8)
Anti-HER2 therapy	27 (26.4)	20 (27.8)
Adjuvant endocrine therapy	78 (76.5)	57 (79.2)
Radiotherapy	81 (79.4)	59 (81.9)

Patient-reported outcomes presented by EORTC C30 Summary Score (C-30 SumSc) and global health status/quality of life (GHS) at inclusion (beginning of chemotherapy), one-year post-chemotherapy, and the difference among both times

		Predicted	At inclusion		At 1 year		[1 year] - [At inclusion]
	n	mean	Mean (95% CI)	p	Mean (95% CI)	p	Mean (95% CI)	p
C-30 SumSc	70	90.9	88.5 (86.1, 90.8)	0.04	82 (78.4, 85.5)	< 0.001	−6.5 (−9.6, −3.4)	< 0.001
GHS	71	72.7	71.1 (66.7, 75.6)	0.50	69.6 (65, 74.2)	0.19	−1.5 (−6.6, 3.5)	0.55