Patients' awareness about their own breast cancer characteristics

Patients' knowledge about the characteristics of their own cancer could be an important factor for understanding treatment regimens and adhering to therapies. However, to date nothing is known about the awareness among Chinese breast cancer patients about the characteristics of their own tumors.

To investigate how much knowledge that Chinese breast cancer patients have about their tumor characteristics and the impact of health and education literacy on the acquisition of such information.

The survey was administered to patients who were diagnosed with breast cancer from 2017 to 2019 in three hospitals in China, and who came in for regular follow-up on an outpatient basis. We collected responses from 226 respondents who were asked about their cancer characteristics (stage, grade, and estrogen receptor status and human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 status of the cancer), and evaluated the correctness by comparing with their medical records. Logistic regression was used to assess the probability of knowing and of correctly answering questions. We also analyzed the association between our findings and the level of the patient's education and their health literacy.

Overall, 20.80% to 57.96% of the patients reported knowing about the characteristics of breast cancer; of these, 10.18% to 46.46% reported these characteristics correctly. Education, age, and health literacy were all significantly associated with awareness rate, and with the level to which this information was accurate.

Breast cancer patients in China know little about their disease, and better education aimed at improving their knowledge about cancer characteristics is urgently needed. The low level of awareness could represent a deficiency of communication between surgeons and patients, which may be one of the reasons why medical disputes occur in China.