Chemotherapy, as one of the main therapies to treat breast cancer, may result in undesirable side effects. It may disrupt the haematological system and cause disorders as a result of chemotoxicity. This condition may lead to a declining in Quality of Life (QoL) of the patients. There were limited data reported from Indonesia about the correlation between haematological chemotoxicity and QoL. Thus, the aim to find the association between them.
This was a cohort-prospective study which includes 50 breast cancer patients who undergone first-cycle of chemotherapy. Patients who had haematological abnormalities and poor quality of life before chemotherapy were excluded. Patient’s QoL was measured by QLQ-BR23 questionnaire which includes body image (BI); sexual functioning (SF); sexual enjoyment (SE); future perspective (FP); and functional total (FT). Haematological chemotherapy toxicity was determined by the number of haemoglobins, leukocytes count and platelet count. Chemotherapy toxicity is graded from 0 (no toxicity) to 5 (death) according to the National Common Institute Common Terminology Criteria for Adverse Events. Correlation is analysed with Pearson Correlation using SPSS version 25.0.
65 patients were included in this study (mean age 46.98 ± 9.05). The correlation between haematological chemotoxicity and BI; SF; SE; FP; and FT were described as follow: Hb r = -0,3; -0.251; -0.498; -0.345; and -0.61 respectively, with p = 0.08; 0.044; 0.01; 0.283; and 0.02 respectively. Leukocyte r = -0.41; -0.121; -0.128; -0.7; -0.3 respectively, with p = 0.01; 0.3; 0.3; 0.02; 0.05 respectively. Platelet r = -0.123; -0.31; -0.7; -0.9; -0.042 respectively, with p = 0.3; 0.03; 0.04; 0.1; 0.05 respectively.
We found that Hb and platelet level is significantly correlated with sexual functioning, sexual enjoyment, and functional total. Meanwhile, the leukocyte level is significantly correlated with body image, future perspective, and functional total.
The authors.
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All authors have declared no conflicts of interest.