Assessment of Quality of Life In Patients With Metastatic Breast Cancer and Its Pharmaceutical Management in Tertiary Care Hospital: A Prospective Observational Study

Abstract:

 To assess QOL in patients with metastatic breast canc er and its pharmaceutical management, To assess the QOL in patients with metastatic breast cancer,To emphasize the pharmaceutical care in improving QOL.The data was collected in the designed data collection form. After the necessary data was collected Assessment of quality of life was performed by using self-designed and validated questionnaire (which was taken from European Organization for Research and Treatment of Cancer Quality of Life Questionnaire Breast Cancer {EORTC QLQ-BR23} and Functional Assessment of Cancer Therapy-Breast Cancer {FACT-B}) was used to assess the quality of life in metastatic breast cancer patients which consists of 30 closed ended questions.Based on the results obtained our study revealed that 16 (30.76%) of the 52 subjects the first distant metastasis was to bone. Of the 18 subjects whose first metastasis was to the viscera, the organ most often involved was the liver (n=9 ; 17.30%) followed by lung (n=6 ; 11.53%) and brain (n=3 ;5.77%) .These findings were in concordance with study done by Linda Vona-Davis et al., (2014) conducted a study on “Breast Cancer Pathology, Receptor Status, and Patterns of Metastasis in a Rural Appalachian Population[6]” and 9 out of 52 subjects were diagnosed with recurrence(17.30%) . remaining 9 subjects were diagnosed with multiple site metastasis i.e., out of 9 (17.30%) 3 subjects were diagnosed with lung, bone (5.77%) and bone, recurrence(n=1 ;1.92%), liver, recurrence (n=1; 1.92%),liver, brain (n=1 ;1.92 %),liver,lung (n=1 ; 1.92%) bone, liver (n=1;1.92%) lung,bone, liver (n=1 ; 1.92%).