Determinants of Quality of Life for Breast Cancer Patients in Shanghai, China.

PURPOSE: To evaluate the association of social support status, health insurance and clinical factors with the quality of life of Chinese women with breast cancer. METHODS: Information on demographics, clinical characteristics, and social support status was collected from 1,160 women with newly diagnosed breast cancer in Shanghai, China. The Perceived Social Support Scale was used to assess different sources of social support for breast cancer patients. The quality of life was evaluated using the Functional Assessment of Cancer Therapy-Breast Cancer that consisted of five domains: breast cancer-specific, emotional, functional, physical, and social & family well-being. Multivariate linear regression models were used to evaluate the associations of demographic variables, clinical characteristics, and social support status with the quality of life measures. RESULTS: Adequate social support from family members, friends and neighbors, and higher scores of Perceived Social Support Scale were associated with significantly improved quality of life of breast cancer patients. Higher household income, medical insurance plans with low copayment, and treatment with traditional Chinese medicine for breast cancer all were associated with higher (better) scores of quality of life measures whereas patients receiving chemotherapy had significantly lower scores of quality of life. CONCLUSION: Social support and financial aids may significantly improve the quality of life of breast cancer survivors.

Colorectal cancer concealment predicts a poor survival: a retrospective study.

OBJECTIVES: Understanding the situation of cancer awareness which doctors give to patients might lead to prognostic prediction in cases of of colorectal cancer (CRC). METHODS: Subsets of 10,779 CRC patients were used to screen the risk factors from the Cancer Registry in Pudong New Area in cancer awareness, age, TNM stage, and gender. Survival of the patients was calculated by the Kaplan-Meier method and assessed by Cox regression analysis. The views of cancer awareness in doctors and patients were surveyed by telephone or household. RESULTS: After a median observation time of 1,616 days (ranging from 0 to 4,083 days) of 10,779 available patients, 2,596 of the 4,561 patients with cancer awareness survived, whereas 2,258 of the 5,469 patients without cancer awareness and 406 of the 749 patients without information on cancer awareness died of the disease. All-cause and cancer- specific survival were poorer for the patients without cancer awareness than those with (P < 0.001 for each, log- rank test). Cox multivariate regression analysis showed that cancer concealment cases had significantly lower cancer-specific survival (hazard ratio (HR) = 1.299; 95 % confidence interval (CI): 1.200-1.407)and all-cause survival (HR = 1.324; 95 % CI: 1.227-1.428). Furthermore, attitudes of cancer awareness between doctors and patients were significantly different (P < 0.001). CONCLUSION: Cancer concealment, not only late-stage tumor and age, is associated with a poor survival of CRC patients.