Increasing numbers of older women are surviving cancer after successful medical treatment, with the potential for both positive and negative long- term outcomes. Women surviving breast cancer face unique problems and concerns, including the physical and psychological sequelae of cancer treatments and fears concerning cancer recurrence. Psychosocial cancer research has primarily focused on younger women, despite the fact that older women are at the highest risk for cancer and often have multiple chronic illnesses and other factors putting them at risk for complications. The proposed project will be among the first studies to examine the long-term impact of surviving cancer among older adults, and will provide valuable information that can be used to design cancer intervention programs for older adults that target their special needs and concerns. It will be a collaborative effort between the Department of Gerontology at the University of South Florida and the Senior Adult Oncology Program (SAOP) at the Moffitt Cancer Center and Research Institute, one of the few programs nationally specializing in cancer care for older persons. The proposed project will study the impact of breast cancer on disability and quality of life in older women, with the overall goal of providing information of value to older women, their families, and health care professionals. Participants will be drawn from a database of 298 women with breast cancer seen by the SAOP from 1994-2001. Cancer survivors will be administered a battery of tests to assess disability, quality of life, and psychological growth, and will be compared to a non-cancer control group taken from over 250 older women in the Charlotte County Healthy Aging Study.
Specific aims are to (1) develop a description of outcomes among older adult breast cancer survivors, including quality of life, functional impairment, and independence and how these vary over length of survival; (2) identify predictors of change in depression, functional impairment and independent living status from initial patient information; and (3) examine survivor perceptions of cancer-related services and their suitability for older adults.
| Perkins, Elizabeth A; Small, Brent J; Balducci, Lodovico et al. (2007) Individual differences in well-being in older breast cancer survivors. Crit Rev Oncol Hematol 62:74-83 |
| Robb, Claire; Haley, William E; Balducci, Lodovico et al. (2007) Impact of breast cancer survivorship on quality of life in older women. Crit Rev Oncol Hematol 62:84-91 |
