severity and impact of cancer-related fatigue. Fatigue scales may or
may not be interchangeable between diseases depending on specificity
and severity. Limitations of scales are that some are generated by
investigator observation rather than actual experiences described by
patients - which may or may not be related. How fatigue is
operationalized based on the investigators theory also makes a
difference.
Frequency of fibromyalgia syndrome in breast cancer patients.
Akkaya N, Atalay NS, Selcuk ST, Alkan H, Catalbas N, Sahin F.
Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, Medicine Faculty,
University of Pamukkale, 20070, Kinikli-Denizli, Turkey,
nrakkaya@gmail.com.
Abstract
BACKGROUND:
We aimed to determine the frequency of fibromyalgia syndrome (FM) in
operated breast cancer patients and to research the relationship
between FM and the severity of fatigue and quality of life in these
breast cancer patients.
METHODS:
The demographic data of 101 operated breast cancer patients were
recorded. The patients who had pain were then classified as having
regional pain (RP), widespread pain without FM (WP), and widespread
pain with FM (WFM). The FM diagnosis was based on the American College
of Rheumatology (ACR) criteria. The severity of fatigue was evaluated
with the Brief Fatigue Inventory, the disease impact was evaluated
with the Fibromyalgia Impact Questionnaire (FIQ), and the quality of
life was evaluated with the European Organization for Research on
Treatment of Cancer questionnaire Quality of Life-C30 (EORTC-QoL-C30).
RESULTS:
There was no pain in 38 (37.6%) patients, whereas there was pain in 63
(62.4%) patients (N = 42, 41.6% had RP, N = 21, 20.8% had WP). Ten
(9.9%) of the entire patient cohort were diagnosed as having FM
according to the ACR criteria.
There were no differences among the 3 groups in respect to demographic
characteristics when patients were classified as RP (N = 42), WP (N =
11), and WFM (N = 10) groups.
While there were negative correlations between the FIQ and
EORTC-QoL-C30-function score (r = -0.727) and EORTC-QoL-C30-global
score (r = -0.488), there was a positive correlation between the FIQ
and EORTC-QoL-C30-symptom score (r = 0.726).
CONCLUSION:
We note that the frequency of FM in the operated breast cancer
patients in this study was higher than that reported in normal
populations in the literature.
Also, we found that the presence of FM had negative effects on the
quality of life of the breast cancer patients. Accordingly, in the
evaluation of widespread pain and complaints of fatigue in
long-surviving breast cancer patients, after metastatic disease is
excluded, the probability of FM should be kept in mind, so that
appropriate treatment can be initiated to improve their functional
status and quality of life.
PMID: 22322540 [PubMed - as supplied by publisher]
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