Aggressive Breast Cancer Surgery Can Leave You Unemployed

Aggressive breast cancer treatment options can cause women to miss more out on work and can suffer with various financial issues after surgery.

Highlights

Women can miss out on work with aggressive breast cancer surgery
Women who underwent a bilateral mastectomy experienced 8-times higher risk of missing work than lumpectomy patients
29% of Bilateral mastectomy patients lost more than $5000 on missing more than a month’s work.

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Aggressive breast cancer surgery can cause you to miss more out on work found a new study published in cancer journal.

Many women with breast cancer are working at the time of diagnosis and would benefit from understanding how their treatment decisions might affect their employment.

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‘Many women with breast cancer are working at the time of diagnosis and would benefit from understanding how their treatment decisions might affect their employment.’

To examine how employment experiences are impacted by different types of breast cancer treatment, Reshma Jagsi, MD, DPhil, of the University of Michigan, and her colleagues surveyed women aged 20 to 79 years diagnosed with stages 0-II breast cancer as reported to the Georgia and Los Angeles SEER registries in 2014 and 2015.

The investigators analyzed 1006 women who were reportedly working before their diagnosis. Among those, 62 percent underwent a lumpectomy to remove their tumors, 16 percent had a unilateral mastectomy (8 percent with reconstruction), and 23 percent had a bilateral mastectomy (19 percent with reconstruction). One-third of women received chemotherapy. Most (84 percent) worked full time before diagnosis.

The study’s findings also revealed that women who underwent bilateral mastectomy with reconstruction had nearly eight times the risk of missing over a month of work, as compared with those who underwent lumpectomy.

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Increased chances of survival found in women who carry a mutation on the BRCA breast cancer gene, diagnosed with early stage breast cancer and also undergo a double mastectomy.

Also, women who missed more than a month of work often lost substantial income; 29 percent of these women lost more than $5000.

"Prior studies have shown that most of the women who had bilateral mastectomy could have chosen lumpectomy but chose the more aggressive surgery, often out of a desire to improve peace of mind.

Gaps in Patient Knowledge of Breast Reconstruction Surgery and Complications
There is a need to better inform breast cancer patients about the pros and cons of breast reconstructive surgery among women undergoing mastectomy.

This study helps to quantify the impact of this decision on the employment and financial experiences of those women soon after diagnosis," said Dr. Jagsi.

"The impact of treatment on employment and finances is a consideration that women may wish to take into account when weighing the pros and cons of various surgical options they are considering."

Not All Breast Cancer Patients Know About Breast Reconstruction
Less than half of the women had adequate medical knowledge about breast reconstruction and made a choice that aligned with their personal preferences.

Reference

Reshma Jagsi, Paul Abrahamse, Kamaria L. Lee, Lauren P. Wallner, Nancy K. Janz, Ann S. Hamilton, Kevin C. Ward, Monica Morrow, Allison W. Kurian, Christopher R. Friese, Sarah T. Hawley,and Steven J. Katz.. Treatment decisions and the employment of breast cancer patients, CANCERDOI: 10.1002/cncr.30959

Source-Eurekalert