{"title":"Neoadjuvant Chemotherapy Is Effective in Those Infected With SARS-CoV-2: The Real-World Experience of a Large Chinese Breast Cancer Center.","authors":"Teng Ma, Tianyi Ma, Lulu Wang, Haibo Wang","doi":"10.4048/jbc.2023.0299","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<p><strong>Purpose: </strong>During the major shift in China's policies on coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), many residents will be infected with severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) over a short period, including a few patients with breast cancer undergoing neoadjuvant chemotherapy (NAC). Moreover, it is unknown whether this comorbidity affects the efficacy of NAC for breast cancer and the patient's psychological state and quality of life (QOL). This study aims to answer these questions.</p><p><strong>Methods: </strong>The clinical data of 2,793 patients with breast cancer who received NAC at The Affiliated Hospital of Qingdao University were retrospectively collected. The infected and non-infected groups were divided according to whether they were infected with COVID-19 during NAC. Propensity score matching was used to reduce patient selection bias. The effectiveness, psychological well-being, and QOL of the two groups were compared.</p><p><strong>Results: </strong>No discernible differences were observed in the pathological complete response rates (<i>p</i> = 0.307) and major histological responses rate (<i>p</i> = 0.398) between the infected and non-infected groups. Following the full course of NAC, the Functional Assessment of Cancer Treatment General (<i>p</i> < 0.001) and Functional Assessment of Cancer Therapy for Breast Cancer (<i>p</i> < 0.001) were lower in the infected group than the non-infected group, the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HADS) anxiety scale (<i>p</i> < 0.001) and HADS depression scale (<i>p</i> < 0.001) were considerably higher in the infected group than the non-infected group.</p><p><strong>Conclusion: </strong>With timely treatment and effective medical management, SARS-CoV-2 does not appear to affect the efficacy of NAC; however, it can significantly affect the QOL of patients and increase their psychological distress. Therefore, in addition to a timely assessment of the efficacy of NAC, it is necessary to dynamically understand the patient's psychological state and QOL.</p>","PeriodicalId":15206,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Breast Cancer","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":2.2000,"publicationDate":"2024-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC11221209/pdf/","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Journal of Breast Cancer","FirstCategoryId":"3","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.4048/jbc.2023.0299","RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"2024/5/2 0:00:00","PubModel":"Epub","JCR":"Q3","JCRName":"ONCOLOGY","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
Purpose: During the major shift in China's policies on coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), many residents will be infected with severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) over a short period, including a few patients with breast cancer undergoing neoadjuvant chemotherapy (NAC). Moreover, it is unknown whether this comorbidity affects the efficacy of NAC for breast cancer and the patient's psychological state and quality of life (QOL). This study aims to answer these questions.
Methods: The clinical data of 2,793 patients with breast cancer who received NAC at The Affiliated Hospital of Qingdao University were retrospectively collected. The infected and non-infected groups were divided according to whether they were infected with COVID-19 during NAC. Propensity score matching was used to reduce patient selection bias. The effectiveness, psychological well-being, and QOL of the two groups were compared.
Results: No discernible differences were observed in the pathological complete response rates (p = 0.307) and major histological responses rate (p = 0.398) between the infected and non-infected groups. Following the full course of NAC, the Functional Assessment of Cancer Treatment General (p < 0.001) and Functional Assessment of Cancer Therapy for Breast Cancer (p < 0.001) were lower in the infected group than the non-infected group, the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HADS) anxiety scale (p < 0.001) and HADS depression scale (p < 0.001) were considerably higher in the infected group than the non-infected group.
Conclusion: With timely treatment and effective medical management, SARS-CoV-2 does not appear to affect the efficacy of NAC; however, it can significantly affect the QOL of patients and increase their psychological distress. Therefore, in addition to a timely assessment of the efficacy of NAC, it is necessary to dynamically understand the patient's psychological state and QOL.
期刊介绍:
The Journal of Breast Cancer (abbreviated as ''J Breast Cancer'') is the official journal of the Korean Breast Cancer Society, which is issued quarterly in the last day of March, June, September, and December each year since 1998. All the contents of the Journal is available online at the official journal website (http://ejbc.kr) under open access policy. The journal aims to provide a forum for the academic communication between medical doctors, basic science researchers, and health care professionals to be interested in breast cancer. To get this aim, we publish original investigations, review articles, brief communications including case reports, editorial opinions on the topics of importance to breast cancer, and welcome new research findings and epidemiological studies, especially when they contain a regional data to grab the international reader''s interest. Although the journal is mainly dealing with the issues of breast cancer, rare cases among benign breast diseases or evidence-based scientifically written articles providing useful information for clinical practice can be published as well.