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Quality of life in patients with metastatic breast cancer treated with metronomic chemotherapy.

AIM
The objective of the study was to detect changes in quality of life (QoL) in metastatic breast cancer patients treated with metronomic chemotherapy with daily low doses of cyclophosphamide and celecoxib.


MATERIAL & METHODS
Patients included in a Phase II trial, treated with metronomic cyclophosphamide and celecoxib were included in the QoL study. Assessment of QoL was carried out every 2 months by the Functional Assessment of Cancer Therapy Breast (FACT-B) questionnaire, Brief Pain Inventory and Eastern Cooperative Oncologic Group scale. Data were analyzed at three time points: baseline (BL); middle of treatment (MT); and end of treatment (ET).


RESULTS
A total of 20 patients were included. All patients were heavily pretreated. Treatment showed a good and safe therapeutic profile. With FACT-B questionnaire, no significant differences were observed during the response period (BL-MT). However, a significant increase was observed in the Emotional well-being and Additional concerns axes, when the last time point was included in the analysis (BL-MT-ET). A significant decrease in the proportion of patients with pain was found when comparing BL with ET (p = 0.046). The assessment with Eastern Cooperative Oncologic Group scale showed that 26.7% (4/15) of the patients improved their functional status and 40% (6/15) showed no changes, while 33.3% (5/10) worsened it.


CONCLUSION
Patients treated metronomically for several months did not worsen their QoL. A high proportion of patients showed improvement or no changes and there were less patients with pain at the end of the treatment.