A survey of joint and muscle aches, pain and stiffness comparing women with and without breast cancer

Abstract

Context: Joint and muscle aches, pain, and stiffness have been reported to be a problem for some women after adjuvant breast cancer treatment; however, the extent and impact of this problem are unknown.

Objectives: The purpose of this study was to determine the prevalence of this problem in comparison with women of a similar age without breast cancer.

Methods: Two hundred forty-seven women attending breast cancer follow-up clinics were invited to complete pain and quality of life measures. A comparison group of 274 women of similar age were drawn from women attending breast screening and benign breast clinics. Prevalence and severity of pain were compared between the two groups.

Results: The mean age of all women in the study was 59 years (range 30–86 years). The median time since diagnosis of cancer was 28 months (range 2–184 months). Adjuvant treatments included radiotherapy (79%), chemotherapy (45%), and hormone therapy (81%). Sixty-two percent of women with breast cancer reported pain “today” compared with 53% of women without breast cancer (P = 0.023). Significant predictors of pain in both patient groups were cancer, age, and arthritis. For the cancer cases, significant predictors of pain were age, arthritis, taxane chemotherapy, aromatase inhibitors, and tamoxifen. Quality of life (measured by the Short Form 36) was significantly worse for women with breast cancer compared with controls and was significantly worse in the breast cancer cases with pain.

Conclusion: Treatment with tamoxifen, taxane chemotherapy, and aromatase inhibitors for breast cancer is all predictive of joint pain, which may have an impact on women's lives for some years after breast cancer.

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