Cosmetic Outcomes and Quality of Life in Thai Women Post Breast Conserving Therapy for Breast Cancer

Purpose: To evaluate the correlation between cosmetic outcome (CO), body image, and quality of life in postbreast-conserving therapy (BCT) women. Materials and
Methods: This cross-sectional study concerned one-yearpost-completed BCT Thai women. The data included subjective and objective CO with a questionnaire coveringdemographic and clinical data, anti-hormonal treatment status, Eastern Cooperative Oncology Group (ECOG)performance status, Self-Reported Cosmetic Outcomes (SRCO), Self-Reported Breast Symmetry (SRBS), BodyImage Scale (BIS), and the Functional Assessment of Cancer Therapy with Breast Cancer subscale (FACT-B).Participants had breast photographs taken for the evaluation of objective cosmetic outcome (OCO) after breastcancer conservation treatment. The relationship between CO and FACT-B was tested using Spearman’s rankcorrelation
Results: A total 127 participants volunteered for the study. The participant characteristics were age52(±9), Buddhist 87%, married 65%, body mass index 25.0(±4.6), breast cup size A-C 91%, college educated60%, employed 66%, ECOG 0-1 95%, tumor size less than or equal to 2 cm 55%, no lymph node metastasis98%, and taking tamoxifen 57%. Two percent of the participants regretted their decision to undergo BCT. TheSRCO was excellent in 2%, good in 68%, fair in 30%, and poor in 0%. For SRBS, rates were 17%, 58%, 24%and 1% for excellent, good, fair and poor cosmetic outcomes, respectively. The BCCT scores were excellent 24%,good 39%, fair 32%, and poor 6%. The median total QOL score of the participants was 130 (93-144). There wasno significant correlation between CO and FACT-B scores.
Conclusions: The significance of CO for FACT-B inThai women with breast cancer could not be assessed in detail because of a very low level of correlation. Theresults may be due to the effects of cultural background.