(Ivanhoe Newswire) -- Women with early stage breast cancer who receive
treatment with both radiotherapy and chemotherapy are more likely to report
fatigue, even six months later.
The result comes from a study comparing breast cancer survivors with similar
women without breast cancer in the general population. The finding could help
doctors better understand how to prevent fatigue in these women, according to
study authors.
Researchers from H. Lee Moffitt Cancer Center in Tampa, Fla., and elsewhere
compared 121 women who received radiotherapy alone for their breast cancer to
100 women who received both radiotherapy and chemotherapy and to 221 women
without cancer. All were assessed for fatigue at two months, four months, and
six months following the breast cancer survivors' treatment.
Even at six months, some of the women with breast cancer were still suffering
from significantly more fatigue than the women without breast cancer, and
further analysis revealed the effect was mainly occurring among women who had
received the combination treatment.
Now, the researchers plan to look for interventions that might help relieve the
fatigue suffered by women on the combination treatment.
"Findings from the current study suggest that future research … explore whether
interventions administered during or at the end of treatment are effective in
preventing or limiting fatigue in the post-treatment period," study authors
write. "Future research should also examine how intervention efforts could be
targeted based on the identification of behavioral and biological risk factors
for persistent fatigue in the post-treatment period."
SOURCE: CANCER, published online Sept. 10, 2007
