Fatigue in breast cancer survivors

Breast cancer survivors who undergo chemotherapy and radiotherapy suffer severe and prolonged fatigue after the treatment. Fatigue is a common complaint in the general population and, anecdotally, common among cancer patients. Comparative fatigue studies between the two populations, however, have been marred by methodological shortcomings, such as poorly matched controls and patient populations. The studies did not consistently agree whether or not fatigue is a more common complaint among cancer patients compared to the general population. To further understand the cause of fatigue, researchers from the Moffitt Cancer Center in Tampa, Florida studied 221 women with non-metastatic (early stage) breast cancer treated with either radiography (in 121 women) or a combination of chemotherapy and radiography (in 100 women) and 221 age- and geographically-matched healthy women (i.e., controls) at two, four and six months after treatment. It was found that breast cancer patients had a significantly greater number of days with reported fatigue at each of the four assessments. Even at the six-month follow-up assessment, a statistically significant and clinically meaningful group difference in fatigue duration was still evident. On further study, it was found that the difference was attributable primarily to heightened fatigue in those women who received both chemotherapy and radiotherapy. Thus, the findings suggest that fatigue is a greater problem for breast cancer survivors in the six months after completion of chemotherapy than for women with no cancer history. Future research should include longer follow-up to determine the persistence of fatigue in this population of survivors. The good news is that exercise has a pivotal role to play in reducing fatigue in breast cancer survivors.