Quality of Life of Indonesian Breast Cancer Women Undergoing Various Surgery Techniques

Breast cancer has the highest cancer rate among women in the world. The types of surgery that are often performed are mastectomy, breast conserving surgery (BCS) without reconstruction, and mastectomy or BCS with reconstruction. In this study, we wanted to assess the QoL in patients with mastectomy without reconstruction, BCS without reconstruction, and BCS or mastectomy with reconstruction in breast cancer patientys in Indonesia.

This study was a retrospective cohort study that assessed patients' QoL after completing therapy with different  types of surgery. The inclusion criteria were all breast cancer patients who did a follow-up medical check-up at outpatient clinics from 2018-2023. Patients were disease-free, had been free of therapy, and were tumor-free for more than 6 months at the time of the evaluation.The participants' QoL was assessed using the SF-36 questionnaire. Data were recorded quantitatively and analyzed through bivariate and multivariate methods.

A significant difference in the total QoL score was found in the three groups (p=0.011). Physical function with a p-vcalue of 0.001  and vitality with a pvalue- of 0.015 were significantly different in the three group. After we conducted a post hoc test on these 3 groups, it was found that patients who underwent breast reconstruction surgery generally reported the best total QoL score and better physical functions score. On the other hand, patients who had BCS had the lowest vitality scores compared to those who underwent mastectomy and breast reconstruction groups.

This research shows that the QoL of the breast reconstruction group has the highest value in the total QoL score and the physical function domain as well. Meanwhile, in the vitality domain, the BCS group had a significantly lower score than the mastectomy group and reconstruction group.