Saturday, December 13, 2014

Women with TNBC worry more, want more information

The good people at Living Beyond Breast Cancer have put numbers to what we all know: Women with TNBC worry a lot and we really, really want information. The study was presented at the 2014 San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium. Says LBBC CEO Jean A. Sachs:
 Women with triple-negative breast cancers are information seekers, as we can see from the thousands of interactions we have with them via LBBC sponsored webinars, community meetings, conference workshops and first-person blogs on LBBC’s website. And they’re frustrated that they don’t have more treatment options.” 
LBBC presented two studies at SABCS. The first was Education and information preferences for women with triple-negative breast cancer: Should personal or medical demographic variables impact program tailoring?” It found that TNBC women "had a significantly stronger preference for information tailored to breast cancer subtype."

The second abstract,“Emotional/psychological characteristics of women with triple-negative breast cancer: Do socioeconomic, demographic, and provider variables impact emotional change from diagnosis to post-treatment?” concluded that:

 “Women with TNBC experience greater fear, anxiety, and worry than women with non-TNBC subtypes at all points from diagnosis though post-treatment. While women with all breast cancer subtypes report a reduction in negative emotion over time from treatment to post-treatment, this change is less profound in TNBC women and appears to be driven nearly entirely by concern about the disease. The marginal effect on change in fear with respect to income may reflect concerns about paying for care, and increased worry in women with small children may reflect concerns about prognosis. Most strikingly, cancer stage was the strongest modifier of emotional change: TNBC women at cancer stage >=2 showed the least decline in negative emotion compared to corresponding non-TNBC women. These data support the development of TNBC-specific interventions focused on these patients’ emotional needs during and after treatment.”

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Does your book cover alternative treatments for triple negative breast cancer?

Patricia Prijatel said...

I cover what is out there for alternative treatments specifically for TNBC, which right now focuses on diet and exercise. One of the women I profiled in the book had vitamin C injections instead of chemo and is doing beautifully. I talk briefly about yoga and acupuncture as well but, again, I don't go to far into alternative treatments because I just couldn't find good research specifically on TNBC. The book below was my alternative bible while I was going through treatment and, even though it is dated, I still think it is quite wonderful. Hugs http://www.amazon.com/Complete-Natural-Medicine-Breast-Cancer/dp/0778800806