Young women fare worse in physical, psychosocial function after cancer diagnosis.

2004 JUN 3 - (NewsRx.com & NewsRx.net) -- Young women may fare worse than older females in terms of physical and psychosocial function after being diagnosed with breast cancer, say Harvard University researchers.

"A total of 122,969 women from the Nurses' Health Study (NHS) and NHS 2, ages 29 to 71 years, who responded to pre- and postfunctional status assessments were included; 1,082 women were diagnosed with breast cancer between 1992 and 1997. Functional status was measured using the Medical Outcomes Study Short Form 36 (SF-36). Mean change in health-related quality of life (HRQoL) scores was computed across categories representing the combination of incident breast cancer (yes or no) and age at diagnosis (less than or equal to 40, 41 to 64, or 65+ years)," Candyce Kroenke and colleagues said.

"Compared with women less than or equal to 40 years without breast cancer, women with breast cancer experienced significant functional declines. Young (age less than or equal to 40) women who developed breast cancer experienced the largest relative declines in HRQoL (as compared with middle-aged and elderly women) in multiple domains including physical roles (-18.8 vs. -11.5 and -7.5 points, respectively); bodily pain (-9.0 vs. -2.7 and -2.7 points); social functioning (-11.3 vs. -4.3 ...