Long-Term Health-Related Quality of Life after Four Common Surgical Treatment Options for Breast Cancer and the Effect of Complications: A Retrospective Patient-Reported Survey among 1871 Patients

An interesting article by Kouwenberg et al. The study shows the added value of breast conservation and reconstruction compared with mastectomy; however, differences among breast-conserving surgery, implant-based reconstruction, and autologous breast reconstruction were subtle.
Long-Term Health-Related Quality of Life after Four Common Surgical Treatment Options for Breast Cancer and the Effect of Complications: A Retrospective Patient-Reported Survey among 1871 Patients
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Differences in quality-of-life outcomes after different surgical breast cancer treatment options, including breast reconstruction, are relevant for counseling individual patients in clinical decision-making, and for (societal) evaluations such as cost-effectiveness analyses. However, current literature shows contradictory results, because of use of different patient-reported outcome measures and study designs with limited patient numbers. The authors set out to improve this evidence using patient-reported outcome measures in a large, cross-sectional study for different surgical breast cancer treatment options.

Quality of life was assessed through the EQ-5D-5L, European Organization for Research and Treatment of Cancer Quality of Life Questionnaires C30 and BR23, and the BREAST-Q. Patients with different treatments were compared after propensity-weighted adjustment of pretreatment differences. The EQ-5D was used to value the effect of surgical complications.

This study shows the added value of breast conservation and reconstruction compared with mastectomy; however, differences among breast-conserving surgery, implant-based reconstruction, and autologous breast reconstruction were subtle. Complications resulted in poorer health-related quality of life.

Read the full article here: https://journals.lww.com/plasreconsurg/Abstract/2020/07000/Long_Term_Health_Related_Quality_of_Life_after.1.aspx

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