scholarly journals Factors Associated with “Survivor Identity” in Men with Breast Cancer

2021 ◽  
Vol 28 (3) ◽  
pp. 1696-1705
Author(s):  
Kathryn L. Dalton ◽  
Sheila N. Garland ◽  
Peggy Miller ◽  
Bret Miller ◽  
Cheri Ambrose ◽  
...  

Cancer patients vary in their comfort with the label “survivor”. Here, we explore how comfortable males with breast cancer (BC) are about accepting the label cancer “survivor”. Separate univariate logistic regressions were performed to assess whether time since diagnosis, age, treatment status, and cancer stage were associated with comfort with the “survivor” label. Of the 70 males treated for BC who participated in the study, 58% moderately-to-strongly liked the term “survivor”, 26% were neutral, and 16% moderately-to-strongly disliked the term. Of the factors we explored, only a longer time since diagnosis was significantly associated with the men endorsing a survivor identity (OR = 1.02, p = 0.05). We discuss how our findings compare with literature reports on the comfort with the label “survivor” for women with BC and men with prostate cancer. Unlike males with prostate cancer, males with BC identify as “survivors” in line with women with BC. This suggests that survivor identity is more influenced by disease type and treatments received than with sex/gender identities.

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (3) ◽  
pp. 484-493
Author(s):  
Jukapun Yoodee ◽  
Aumkhae Sookprasert ◽  
Phitjira Sanguanboonyaphong ◽  
Suthan Chanthawong ◽  
Manit Seateaw ◽  
...  

Anthracycline-based regimens with or without anti-human epidermal growth factor receptor (HER) 2 agents such as trastuzumab are effective in breast cancer treatment. Nevertheless, heart failure (HF) has become a significant side effect of these regimens. This study aimed to investigate the incidence and factors associated with HF in breast cancer patients treated with anthracyclines with or without trastuzumab. A retrospective cohort study was performed in patients with breast cancer who were treated with anthracyclines with or without trastuzumab between 1 January 2014 and 31 December 2018. The primary outcome was the incidence of HF. The secondary outcome was the risk factors associated with HF by using the univariable and multivariable cox-proportional hazard model. A total of 475 breast cancer patients were enrolled with a median follow-up time of 2.88 years (interquartile range (IQR), 1.59–3.93). The incidence of HF was 3.2%, corresponding to an incidence rate of 11.1 per 1000 person-years. The increased risk of HF was seen in patients receiving a combination of anthracycline and trastuzumab therapy, patients treated with radiotherapy or palliative-intent chemotherapy, and baseline left ventricular ejection fraction <65%, respectively. There were no statistically significant differences in other risk factors for HF, such as age, cardiovascular comorbidities, and cumulative doxorubicin dose. In conclusion, the incidence of HF was consistently high in patients receiving combination anthracyclines trastuzumab regimens. A reduced baseline left ventricular ejection fraction, radiotherapy, and palliative-intent chemotherapy were associated with an increased risk of HF. Intensive cardiac monitoring in breast cancer patients with an increased risk of HF should be advised to prevent undesired cardiac outcomes.


Diagnostics ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (3) ◽  
pp. 518
Author(s):  
Da-Chuan Cheng ◽  
Te-Chun Hsieh ◽  
Kuo-Yang Yen ◽  
Chia-Hung Kao

This study aimed to explore efficient ways to diagnose bone metastasis early using bone scintigraphy images through negative mining, pre-training, the convolutional neural network, and deep learning. We studied 205 prostate cancer patients and 371 breast cancer patients and used bone scintigraphy data from breast cancer patients to pre-train a YOLO v4 with a false-positive reduction strategy. With the pre-trained model, transferred learning was applied to prostate cancer patients to build a model to detect and identify metastasis locations using bone scintigraphy. Ten-fold cross validation was conducted. The mean sensitivity and precision rates for bone metastasis location detection and classification (lesion-based) in the chests of prostate patients were 0.72 ± 0.04 and 0.90 ± 0.04, respectively. The mean sensitivity and specificity rates for bone metastasis classification (patient-based) in the chests of prostate patients were 0.94 ± 0.09 and 0.92 ± 0.09, respectively. The developed system has the potential to provide pre-diagnostic reports to aid in physicians’ final decisions.


2007 ◽  
Vol 14 (10) ◽  
pp. 2918-2927 ◽  
Author(s):  
Timothy Kennedy ◽  
Andrew K. Stewart ◽  
Karl Y. Bilimoria ◽  
Lina Patel-Parekh ◽  
Stephen F. Sener ◽  
...  

2021 ◽  
Vol 39 (15_suppl) ◽  
pp. 6589-6589
Author(s):  
Aaron Galaznik ◽  
Emelly Rusli ◽  
Vicki Wing ◽  
Rahul Jain ◽  
Sheila Diamond ◽  
...  

6589 Background: While patients with cancer are known to be at increased risk of infection in part due to the immunocompromising nature of cancer treatments, recent data indicate a particularly high risk for COVID-19 infection and poor outcomes (Wang et al., 2020). A recent study (Meltzer et al., 2020) demonstrated Vitamin D deficiency may increase risk of COVID-19 infection, and a small randomized controlled trial in Spain reported significant improvement in mortality among hospitalized patients treated with calcifediol. Vitamin D deficiency has been reported in two leading causes of cancer deaths: breast and prostate. In this study, we performed a retrospective cohort analysis on nationally representative electronic medical records (EMR) to assess whether Vitamin D deficiency affects risk of COVID-19 among these patients. Methods: Patients with breast (female) or prostate (male) cancer were identified between 3/1/2018 and 3/1/2020 from EMR data provided pro-bono by the COVID-19 Research Database ( covid19researchdatabase.org ). Patients with an ICD-10 code for Vitamin D deficiency or < 20ng/mL 20(OH)D laboratory result within 12 months prior to 3/1/2020 were classified as Vitamin D deficient. COVID-19 diagnosis was defined using ICD-10 codes and laboratory results for COVID-19 at any time after 3/1/2020. Logistic regressions, adjusting for baseline demographic and clinical characteristics, were conducted to estimate the effect of Vitamin D deficiency on COVID-19 incidence in each cancer cohort. Results: A total of 16,287 breast cancer and 14,919 prostate cancer patients were included in the study. The average age was 68.9 years in the breast cancer cohort and 73.6 years in the prostate cancer cohort. The breast cancer cohort consisted of 85% Whites, 13% Black or African Americans, and less than 5% of other races. A similar race distribution was observed in the prostate cancer cohort. Unadjusted analysis showed the risk of COVID-19 was higher among Vitamin D deficient patients compared to non-deficient patients in both cohorts (breast: OR = 1.60 [95% C.I.: 1.15, 2.20]; prostate: OR = 1.59 [95% C.I.: 1.08, 2.33]). Similar findings were observed when assessed in subgroups of patients with newly diagnosed cancer in the dataset, as well as after adjusting for baseline characteristics. Conclusions: Our study suggests breast and prostate cancer patients may have an elevated risk of COVID-19 infection if Vitamin D deficient. These results support findings by Meltzer et al., 2020 demonstrating a relationship between Vitamin D deficiency and COVID-19 infection. While a randomized clinical trial is warranted to confirm the role for Vitamin D supplementation in preventing COVID-19, our study underscores the importance of monitoring Vitamin D levels across and within cancer populations, particularly in the midst of the global COVID-19 pandemic.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Parth Sharma ◽  
Josh Thomas Georgy ◽  
Anand George Andrews ◽  
Ajoy Oommen John ◽  
Anjana Joel ◽  
...  

Abstract Purpose: Dose dense chemotherapy improves survival but also increases toxicity and treatment related cost. Here we report the prevalence of anemia, understand the risk factors of chemotherapy related anemia and determine the cost and time-delay associated with transfusion requirement in Indian non-metastatic breast cancer patients on dose dense preoperative chemotherapy.Methods: In this study, 116 triple negative breast cancer (TNBC) patients were treated preoperatively with Docetaxel and Cyclophosphamide alternating with Epirubicin and Cisplatin every 2-weekly. Patients were evaluated for anemia pre- and post-chemotherapy. We examined trends in the cell counts, transfusion requirement, time to transfusion as well as risk factors associated with transfusion during treatment, along with delay in treatment due to anemia and the additional cost incurred.Results: One hundred and sixteen women with high-risk non-metastatic TNBC were treated. Median age was 44.5 years. 56.1% had stage III disease. Delivery of 6/8 planned doses was achieved in 98.3% of patients, and all 8 doses in 86% patients. Anemia was detected at baseline in 54(46.5%) patients with mild(10-12g/dl) anemia in 42(36.2%) patients and moderate(8-10g/dl) in 12(10.3%) patients. Forty-four patients (37.9%) required transfusion during chemotherapy with 55(47.4%) patients having grade 1-2 anemia and 40(34.5%) patients having grade 3 anemia. The factors associated with transfusion were low grade of tumor (OR 2.48 (95% CI 1.08 - 5.68), p = 0.025), hemoglobin post 2 cycles of chemotherapy (OR 1.74 (95% CI 1.21- 2.51), p = 0.003), thrombocytopenia grade 3 or 4 (OR 4.35 (95% CI 1.062-17.827), p = 0.034) and drop in hemoglobin after 2 cycles (OR 1.65 (95% CI 1.09-2.48), p = 0.017). Nearly one fourth of the study population had a delay between two cycles of chemotherapy due to anemia. A median additional cost of Rs 7000 (IQR-Rs 7000 – Rs 14000) was incurred on transfusion.Conclusion: Anemia is a common toxicity associated with dose dense chemotherapy during curative breast cancer treatment leading to delay in treatment and increased cost. Low grade tumor, grade 3 or 4 thrombocytopenia and Grade 2 or higher anemia after 2 cycles of chemotherapy are risk factors for blood transfusions during treatment.


2021 ◽  
Vol Publish Ahead of Print ◽  
Author(s):  
Mashael F. Dewan ◽  
Karen S. Lyons ◽  
MinKyoung Song ◽  
Dena Hassouneh

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