The Long-term Psychological Effect and Impacts on the Application of Dexamethasone on Quality of Life of Breast Cancer Patients during Adjuvant Chemotherapy

PIAO Ying; TANG Ling; XIE Xiao-dong

doi:10.3969/j.issn.1002-3429.2016.04.029

Abstract：Objective To observe the long-term psychological effect and impact on the application of dexamethasone duing adjuvant chemotherapy on quality of life breast cancer patients. Methods 203 breast cancer patients were selected, who underwent chemotherapy without relapse and transfer during October 2010 to October 2012. All the patients underwent AC sequential T plan or TH chemotherapy ( A:Doxorubicin, C:Cyclophosphamide, T:Docetaxel, H:Trastuzumab) , and were given 24 mg dexamethasone before chemotherapy 1 d, oral twice a day, use of 2 d continually, four cycles in total. Hormone-related adverse reactions 3 years after chemotherapy, and 3 years before chemotherapy were recorded and QOL, SAS, SDS questionnaires were used to assess the impact of dexamethasone on quality of life and psychological aspects of long-term ad-verse effects. Results In the group of systemic chemotherapy for 3 years, 192 cases presented different degrees of osteoporo-sis, central obesity, moon face and the other hormone-related adverse reactions. Following 3 years of systemic chemotherapy, the scores of emotional functioning, fatigue, loss of appetite, sleep disturbances were significantly higher than that before treat-ment (P<0. 05), SAS and SDS scores were similar to that of emotional functioning, fatigue(P=0. 023; P=0. 037), and major psychological effect of patients was the result of adverse reaction form dexamethasone. Conclusion The application of dexamethasone in breast cancer patients during adjuvant chemotherapy can reduce chemotherapy-related adverse reactions, but may lead to different levels of hormone-related adverse reactions after two months, with long-term psychological effects, which will cause psychological changes, and reduce the quality of life of breast cancer patients.