![What’s Next? Side Effects of Breast Cancer Treatment [Infographic]](https://medivizor.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/After-Treament-w-text640X320.jpg)
The American Cancer Society and the American Society of Clinical Oncology have joined forces to build guidelines that can be used to treat survivors of breast cancer by primary care physicians. This is great news because there hasn’t been any standardized follow-up for those breast cancer patients that have undergone surgery, radiation and chemotherapy.
Breast Cancer Survivor’s Blog About Long Term Effects
Survivors have been blogging about the trials of survivorship for some time. Many experience long-term consequences of their treatment; some experience a reduced quality of life because of these side effects of breast cancer treatment.
For example, AnneMarie Ciccarella started her blog Chemobrain Fog “as a means of me unclogging my brain.” She has often written that her blog was to bring awareness of this disorder. She has had to reiterate that chemobrain is real. “I do have chemobrain, I defy anyone to challenge that statement. My brain was physiologically damaged…I can no longer multi-task thanks to chemobrain.” Her experience occurs in up to 75% of breast cancer patients while in treatment and 35% after treatment. Now there are guidelines that make chemobrain impossible to ignore.
Likewise, Nancy Stordahl of Nancy’s Point writes of the many breast cancer treatment side effects she and others experience, including the “f word” for “fat.” Around 62% of breast cancer survivors are overweight or obese according to the guidelines.
Changes in beliefs about their body image affect between 31% to 67% of breast cancer survivors. Beth Gainer has written about her struggles
with her body image after breast cancer treatment here.
Here is a link to a blogpost on coping with peripheral neuropathy. The Medivizor library contains articles on lymphedema and other side effects.
New Treatment Guidelines For Primary Care Physicians
A group of multidisciplinary experts in primary care, gynecology, surgical oncology, medical oncology, radiation oncology and nursing reviewed the literature through April 2015 to identify side effects of breast cancer treatment and create guidelines for care.
With around 3 million breast cancer survivors in the US, there is significant need for this help. The guidelines include care of women in the areas of
Side Effects of Breast Cancer Treatment Infographic
Below is an Infographic of the specific breast cancer treatment side effects identified in the guidelines article on Table 5. The guidelines explain that the risk of long term and late treatment side effects are related to factors like the treatment you go through-including the type of surgery, chemotherapy, hormone treatment etc, the length of time and the dosages of the treatment, and your age while going through treatment.
The research says it’s not just chemo that causes cognitive impairment. Surgical anesthesia, radiation, targeted therapy and hormonal therapy, as well as the cancer itself, all play a role.
Slotting it in there with chemo is misleading, and for those who have it but did not have chemo, distressing.
Thank you for this comment. I appreciate it.
My name is Megan King and I am the Tigerlily Foundation Special Programs Coordinator. The mission of Tigerlily Foundation is to educate, advocate for empower and support young women – before, during and after breast cancer.
Tigerlily Foundation is currently seeking young women living with metastatic breast cancer between the ages of 15 and 45 for a special project, which will provide education and resources for young women living with breast cancer. Please visit our website to learn more about the program and take a Metastatic Breast Cancer Survey to help us best help you: http://tigerlilyfoundation.org/mbc. As one of the key components of this program we are collecting stories and photos of young woman, as well as filming and creating a short video series of woman local to the Washington, DC area to be shared for awareness and education. The first phase of the video will be on Wednesday, 01/27, with time slots available for interviews between 8AM and 4PM. If you are interested in helping refer women to our program or help to promote the program to those in your network who may benefit, please share the info I have given and/or contact me at Megank@tigerlilyfoundation.org
Warm Regards,
Megan King
I would add cognitive dysfunction, sexual dysfunction and insomnia to the Aromatase/hormonal category. These are commonly reported side effects, at least on discussion boards such as BreastCancer.org. I didn’t see how the side effects were chosen – was this based on FDA reporting?
The list of side effects can be found in the joint guidelines created by the American Cancer Society and the ASCO here is the link which is also hot linked in the post. http://jco.ascopubs.org/content/early/2015/12/07/JCO.2015.64.3809.full The infographic does not contain all that is in the guidelines (not enough room). Hope this is helpful. Thank you for your comment. Kathleen
Thank you amazing content for writing to the audience about the side effects of the breast cancer treatment.