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  • 1
    ISSN: 1433-7339
    Keywords: Quality of life ; Breast cancer ; Coping ; Single-item linear-analogue scale ; Validation
    Source: Springer Online Journal Archives 1860-2000
    Topics: Medicine
    Notes: Abstract Subjective well-being is a major aspect of quality of life and is therefore increasingly used as an endpoint in clinical trials. It is influenced to a great extent by the complex process of coping with the disease and its treatment. Assessment of coping is methodologically demanding, especially in large clinical trials. We therefore developed a single-item measure, the Perceived Adjustment to Chronic Illness Scale (PACIS), as an indicator of coping, complementary to other scales related to quality of life. We sought to validate this instrument in a subgroup of 121 Swiss patients participating in the International Breast Cancer Study Group (IBCSG) adjuvant trials. At months 3 and 6 of adjuvant treatment PACIS showed a distinct pattern of highly significant rank correlations with several disease-and treatment-related problem areas from the Herschbach coping inventory (FBBK); 42% of the variance of PACIS at month 3 was explained by the FBBK (P=0.0001). The portion of explained variance was considerably higher for the Italian-(70%) than for the German-speaking (30%) subgroups. Patients who rated more effort to cope with their disease on PACIS indicated more frequent use of 3 of 15 coping strategies in relation to psychological distress. These were “crying and becoming desperate”, “taking tranquillizers and alcohol” and “other people are far worse off”. These three coping strategies may define a high-risk group for poor psychosocial outcome. Patients whose PACIS scores showed that it required less effort to cope tended to use the strategy “seeing a positive side of the problem”. We conclude that PACIS can be used as a global indicator of the coping process in large multicultural clinical trials of adjuvant therapy for breast cancer.
    Type of Medium: Electronic Resource
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  • 2
    ISSN: 1433-7339
    Keywords: Key words Tamoxifen ; Cytotoxic treatment ; Cellular immunity ; Breast cancer
    Source: Springer Online Journal Archives 1860-2000
    Topics: Medicine
    Notes: Abstract The effects and interaction of endocrine and cytotoxic adjuvant treatment on measures of cellular immunity were assessed in 41 stage I–II breast cancer patients from International Breast Cancer Study Group trials. Counts of lymphocytes and lymphocyte subsets [(T, T4, T8, B, natural killer (NK) and activated T (AT) cells] were assessed by flow cytometry immediately before adjuvant therapy at baseline and on day 1 of the 3rd cycle. Twenty-two patients received cyclophosphamide, methotrexate and 5-fluorouracil (CMF), 7 CMF and tamoxifen (TAM), and 12 TAM alone. On day 1 of the 3rd cycle the counts of total lymphocytes (P=0.003 ) and all lymphocyte subsets (P〈0.05) except AT cells were significantly lower than baseline in the CMF treatment group. There was no significant change in the CMF+TAM or in the TAM treatment group. The combination of CMF and TAM resulted in less pronounced decrease in lymphocyte and subset counts from baseline to day 1 of the 3rd cycle. It seems possible that there is an interaction between TAM with CMF that affects lymphocyte and lymphocyte subset counts during cytotoxic treatment.
    Type of Medium: Electronic Resource
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  • 3
    ISSN: 1573-7217
    Keywords: breast cancer ; cellular immunity ; β2-microglobulin ; sIL-2r ; prognosis
    Source: Springer Online Journal Archives 1860-2000
    Topics: Medicine
    Notes: Abstract Objective: The association of known prognostic factors with immune cell counts and β2-microglobulin and soluble IL-2 receptor (sIL-2r) serum levels as markers of activation of the immune system was investigated in breastcancer. Methods: Two hundred thirty five operated stage I and II breast cancer patients to receive adjuvant treatment in IBSCG trials were assessed in a cross-sectional study immediately before the first treatment. Leukocytes, lymphocytes and lymphocyte subset counts, β2-microglobulin and sIL-2r serum levels were assessed as immunological parameters. Prognostic factors were tumor load, receptor status, patient characteristics, and contextual factors of the immune assessment (such as time of the day, time since surgery, type of surgery, concomitant medication, co-morbidity). Results: In an operated early stage breast cancer patient population, tumor load was not associated with immune cell counts, β2-microglobulin, or sIL-2r before adjuvant treatment. There was a pattern of association of prognostically favorable factors such as estrogen receptor (ER) positive tumor and older age with higher NK cell counts or with β2-microglobulin or sIL-2r. In addition, immune cell counts and the markers of activation of the immune system were affected by several contextual factors, such as diurnal variability, time since surgery, type of surgery, and the intake of concomitant medication. Conclusions: The association of NK cell counts and β2-microglobulin or sIL-2r serum levels with prognostically favorable factors such as ER positive tumor and older age supports the assumption that the immune system plays a role in the course of early breast cancer. The exact nature of this role requires furtherstudy.
    Type of Medium: Electronic Resource
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