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Survivors of primary breast cancer 5 years after surgery: follow-up care, long-term problems, and treatment regrets. Results of the prospective BRENDA II-study

  • Gynecologic Oncology
  • Published:
Archives of Gynecology and Obstetrics Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Purpose

This study aims to answer the questions where breast cancer patients in Germany receive follow-up care (with what types of doctors) and what are the long-term problems and treatment regrets of breast cancer patients.

Methods

In the prospective multicenter cohort study BRENDA II (“Breast Cancer under Evidence-Based Guidelines”), 456 patients with primary breast cancer were sampled consecutively over a period of 4 years (2009–2012) and contacted again 5 years after surgery. Long-term problems were elicited on a 4-point Likert scale ranging from 0 (‘not at all’) to 3 (‘very much’).

Results

82% of the patients receive follow-up (FU) at the private practice gynecologist. In 22%, the initial treating hospital is involved in the FU, and in 20% the general practitioner does this (multiple answers possible). Long-term problems attributed to the treatment were most often related to endocrine therapy (mean 1.29) and to chemotherapy (mean 0.94).

Most of the patients were happy to have had radiotherapy (95%). For chemotherapy, endocrine therapy, and antibody therapy, the satisfaction for the treatment decision was 87%, 87%, and 84% respectively. Among patients who reported they regretted having undergone a recommended treatment, it was most often for endocrine therapy (5%) and chemotherapy (4%).

Conclusion

In Germany, different specialists are involved in the patients’ FU care for BC. The detection of long-term problems due to BC treatment is an essential part of FU care.

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Funding

This work was supported by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF-Grant-01ZP0505).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Gynaecology and Obstetrics, University of Ulm, Prittwitzstr 43, 89075, Ulm, Germany

    Elena Leinert, Rolf Kreienberg, Wolfgang Janni & Lukas Schwentner

  2. Department of Gynaecology and Obstetrics, University of Würzburg, Würzburg, Germany

    Achim Wöckel

  3. Department of Gynaecology and Obstetrics, Hospital Esslingen, Esslingen, Germany

    Thorsten Kühn

  4. Department of Gynaecology and Obstetrics, Hospital Memmingen, Memmingen, Germany

    Felix Flock

  5. Department of Gynaecology and Obstetrics, Hospital Kempten, Kempten, Germany

    Ricardo Felberbaum

  6. Institute of Medical Biostatistics, Epidemiology and Informatics, University Medical Centre, Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz, Mainz, Germany

    Kathy Taylor & Susanne Singer

Authors
  1. Elena Leinert
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  2. Rolf Kreienberg
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  3. Achim Wöckel
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  5. Felix Flock
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  7. Wolfgang Janni
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  8. Kathy Taylor
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  9. Susanne Singer
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  10. Lukas Schwentner
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Consortia

BRENDA study group

Contributions

EL: manuscript writing. RK: funding acquisition, conceptualization. AW: funding acquisition, conceptualization, data collection. TK: data collection. FF: data collection. RF: data collection. WJ: data collection. KT: manuscript writing. SS: conceptualization, methodology, manuscript writing. LS: conceptualization, manuscript writing.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Elena Leinert.

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Conflict of interest

Susanne Singer has received a research grant from Pfizer, the quality of life prize from Lilly, travel grants from Genzyme, and lecture fees from Astra Zeneca, Pfizer, Bristol-Myers Squibb, and Boehringer Ingelheim. The other authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

Ethical approval

All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki Declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.

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Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.

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Leinert, E., Kreienberg, R., Wöckel, A. et al. Survivors of primary breast cancer 5 years after surgery: follow-up care, long-term problems, and treatment regrets. Results of the prospective BRENDA II-study. Arch Gynecol Obstet 301, 761–767 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00404-020-05437-1

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