UCLA

Purpose

To examine patterns of health and symptoms associated with the initiation of adjuvant endocrine therapy (ET) for primary breast cancer treatment.

Patients and methods

The mind-body study (MBS) observational cohort participants provided self-reported data on physical and mental health, ET-related symptoms, as well as depression, fatigue, and sleep obtained at enrollment (after primary treatment, prior to initiation of ET) and 6 and 12 months later. Longitudinal trajectories of outcome variables among three patient groups (no ET, aromatase inhibitor [AI], or tamoxifen) were compared by using linear mixed models.

Results

Two-thirds of the 186 women initiated ET, which was evenly split between AI and tamoxifen, and no significant differences were observed in self-reported measures among the groups at baseline or in covariate-adjusted analyses. Physical health scores were below normative levels initially and improved over time, but the AI group had a significantly lower score at 12 months (P = .05); mental health scores were within the normal range, were similar in each group, and did not change over time. The no-ET group showed either stable or declining symptom severity, whereas the ET groups often showed increased severity over time, and the AI group reported more severe musculoskeletal (P = .02), hot flash (P = .02), and cognitive problems (P = .006) at one or both of the follow-up time points compared with the no-ET group. The tamoxifen group had higher levels of hot flashes (P = .002), cognitive problems (P = .016), and bladder problems (P = .02) than the no-ET group.

Conclusion

Attention should be given to the increased symptom burden associated with ET, and better efforts should be made to address patient-reported outcomes.