Influence of Patients’ Side-Effect Expectations on Outcome of Endocrine Treatment for Breast Cancer
A study of women receiving hormone therapies such as tamoxifen as part of their treatment for breast cancer found that the number and seriousness of side effects they experienced were influenced by their expectations. The study, published by Nestoriuc et al in Annals of Oncology, found that women who had higher expectations of suffering more and worse side effects before their treatment began did, in fact, experience more after 2 years of adjuvant hormone therapy. They experienced nearly twice the number of side effects compared with women who had positive expectations or who thought the effects would not be too bad.
The researchers say their findings are important because women may stop taking their adjuvant hormone treatment if they experience too many side effects and worse health-related quality of life; this, in turn, can affect the success of treatment and survival. However, if expectations can predict the risk of experiencing side effects, then interventions such as counselling could lower the risk and, therefore, improve adherence to medication.
Yvonne Nestoriuc, PhD, of the Department of Psychosomatic Medicine and Psychotherapy at the University Medical Centre, Hamburg, Germany, who led the study, said, “Our results show that expectations constitute a clinically relevant factor that influences the long-term outcome of hormone therapy. Expectations can be modified so as to decrease the burden of long-term side effects and optimize adherence to preventive anticancer treatments in breast cancer survivors.”
Study Findings
The research was carried out in 111 women who were enrolled in a clinical trial at the Breast Cancer Centre at the University of Marburg, Germany, who had had surgery for hormone receptor–positive breast cancer and who were scheduled to start adjuvant hormone therapy with either tamoxifen or aromatase inhibitors, such as exemestane.
The researchers questioned the patients about their expectations of the effects of taking adjuvant hormone therapy at the start of the trial and then assessed them at 3 months (n = 107) and 2 years (n = 88).
At the start of the trial, 9 patients (8%) said they expected no side effects from adjuvant hormone treatment, 70 patients (63%) said they expected mild side effects, and 32 patients (29%) expected moderate to severe side effects.
After 3 months, patients who later dropped out of the trial (n = 19) reported significantly more side effects than those who remained in it (n = 88). At the end of the 2 years, adherence to medication was associated with side effects at 3 months and expectations at the beginning of the trial.
Two-year adherence rates were higher in women with low expectations of side effects before treatment started (87% adherence) than in women with high expectations of side effects (69%). Higher expectations of side effects at the start of the study predicted a 1.8 times increase in their occurrence after 2 years and a lower health-related quality of life compared to women expecting no or mild side effects.
The researchers adjusted their findings to account for sociodemographic and medical factors, including symptoms the women were already experiencing at the start of the study and previous menopausal symptoms. After these adjustments, expectations were still shown to be independent and clinically relevant factors.
Side effects included joint pain (71%), weight gain (53%), and hot flashes (47%). But women also reported symptoms that could not be directly attributable to their medication, including back pain (31%), breathing problems (28%), and dizziness (26%).
Further Considerations
“This substantiates the conclusion that psychological mechanisms such as negative expectations about the treatment play a significant role in the side effects breast cancer patients experience,” said Dr. Nestoriuc. “Higher negative expectations, formed by patients before the start of their adjuvant therapy, seem to have a pronounced influence on long-term tolerability, especially once they are confirmed by initially high side effects after 3 months.”
A limitation of the study was that nearly 40% of patients who were eligible to join the trial did not take part. Their decision might have been affected by the fact that they already had negative expectations about adjuvant hormone therapy.
Dr. Nestoriuc and her colleagues are currently carrying out a randomized controlled trial to see whether strategies for improving women’s expectations are effective. These strategies include counseling by psychologists or trained medical staff just before the start of treatment and during the first couple of months as well as the provision of information on treatment highlighting its benefits that also explains the possible effects of expectations and that gives patients strategies for coping with side effects.
The content in this post has not been reviewed by the American Society of Clinical Oncology, Inc. (ASCO®) and does not necessarily reflect the ideas and opinions of ASCO®.
