Stressful Events in Life Due to Losses and Deficit Could Predict 25-year Outcome in Patients With Breast Cancer...

Psychosocial stressful (PS) factors like losses and deficit could associate indirectly to breast carcinoma (BC) risk, but the long-term impact of losses, deficit and stressful (LDS) events on outcome of patients with BC symptoms is rarely reported.

A study cohortof 115 patients with BC symptoms completed the LDS inventory (LDSI). Associations between LDSI and long-term outcomes were examined.

In the Cox model, the LDSI predicted the 25-year relapse-free survival (RFS) in patients with BC [hazard ratio (HR)=5.02, p=0.01] and the LDSI scale predicted 25-year overall survival (OS) in women with BC symptoms (HR=2.37, p=0.05). In the Kaplan-Meier survival analysis by the log-rank test, the 25-year relapse rate differed between low LDSI (<83) versus the high LDSI (≥83) in patients with BC symptoms (27.9% versus 54.5%, log-rank p-value=0. 098). Also, the low LDSI (<83) was a favourable predictor of the RFS [HR=5.02, 95% confidence interval (CI)=1.42-17.8, p=0.01] in patients with BC. The 25-year OS rate differed between low LDSI (<83) versus the high LDSI score (≥83) patients with BC symptoms (19.8% versus 36.8%, log-rank p-value=0.048). A similar figure was seen in BC as the LDSI predicted 25-year OS in female patients with BC (44.4% versus 71.4%, log-rank p-value=0.048).

This study found a significant long-term outcome effect for LDS events on both women with BC symptoms and patients with BC. These findings suggest that further research is needed to substantiate whether LDSI approach could be an important addition to PS events screening criteria for preventative or early BC care.