Combo Treatment Ups Fatigue in Breast Cancer
Reported September 10, 2007
(Ivanhoe Newswire) — Women with early stage breast cancer who receive treatment with both radiotherapy and chemotherapy are more likely to report fatigue, even six months later.
The result comes from a study comparing breast cancer survivors with similar women without breast cancer in the general population. The finding could help doctors better understand how to prevent fatigue in these women, according to study authors.
Researchers from H. Lee Moffitt Cancer Center in Tampa, Fla., and elsewhere compared 121 women who received radiotherapy alone for their breast cancer to 100 women who received both radiotherapy and chemotherapy and to 221 women without cancer. All were assessed for fatigue at two months, four months, and six months following the breast cancer survivors’ treatment.
Even at six months, some of the women with breast cancer were still suffering from significantly more fatigue than the women without breast cancer, and further analysis revealed the effect was mainly occurring among women who had received the combination treatment.
Now, the researchers plan to look for interventions that might help relieve the fatigue suffered by women on the combination treatment.
“Findings from the current study suggest that future research explore whether interventions administered during or at the end of treatment are effective in preventing or limiting fatigue in the post-treatment period,” study authors write. “Future research should also examine how intervention efforts could be targeted based on the identification of behavioral and biological risk factors for persistent fatigue in the post-treatment period.”
SOURCE: CANCER, published online Sept. 10, 2007