Sustainable return to work among breast cancer survivors

Abstract Purpose This study assessed sustainable return to work (SRTW) of breast cancer survivors (BCS). Methods We used data from the prospective French cohort, CANTO. We included 1811 stage I–III BCS who were  50 (OR = 0.59; 95%CI = 0.43–0.82), stage III (2.56; 1.70–3.85), tumour subtype HR+/HER2+ (0.61; 0.39–0.95), severe fatigue (1.45; 1.06–1.98), workplace accommodations (1.63; 1.14–2.33) and life priorities (0.71; 0.53–0.95). Unemployment was associated with age > 50 (0.45; 0.29–0.72), working in the public sector (0.31; 0.19–0.51), for a small company (3.00; 1.74–5.20) and having a fixed‐term contract (7.50; 4.74–11.86). Conclusions A high number of BCS have periods of sick leave or unemployment after RTW. The determinants differ between sick leave and unemployment. Implications for cancer survivors BCS need to be supported even after RTW, which should be regarded as a process

J Natl Cancer Inst

BACKGROUND: Using the large nationwide CANTO cohort, we assessed cognitive functioning change after cancer treatments in a subgroup of breast cancer patients. METHODS: We included patients with newly diagnosed invasive stage I-III breast cancer enrolled in the CANTO sub-study focused on cognitive evaluation and healthy control women matched for age and education. Episodic and working memory, executive functions, processing speed, attention, self-report cognitive difficulties (SRCD), fatigue, anxiety/depression were assessed with neuropsychological tests and self-report questionnaires, before treatment (baseline), about 1 (year-1) and 2 years (year-2) after diagnosis. We used linear mixed models to study changes in cognition and tested the effect of adjuvant chemotherapy. RESULTS: We studied 276 localized breast cancer patients (62% chemotherapy (CT+)) compared to 135 healthy controls. After adjustment, patients had lower baseline working memory, processing speed and attention scores than healthy controls (p ≤ 0.001), and the difference remained significant over follow-up for working memory and processing speed. Executive function scores were similar between groups at baseline but decreased at year-1 among patients compared to healthy controls (p for change = 0.006). This decrease in CT+ patients was significant when compared to healthy controls scores (p for change < 0.001). After adjustment, SRCD were similar between breast cancer patients and healthy controls at baseline but increased in patients after treatment at year-1 (p for change = 0.002). CONCLUSIONS: Cognitive difficulties are an important concern in breast cancer patients, starting at diagnosis. Cancer treatments induce executive function decline and SRCD, which decrease over follow-up.Etude des toxicités chroniques des traitements anticancéreux chez les patientes porteuses cance