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Surgeons
need to be more responsive to a breast cancer patient's need
to be involved in treatment decisions, according to Harvard
Medical School researchers.
Researchers
developed a study to describe desired and actual roles in
treatment decision-making among patients with early-stage
breast cancer, identify how often patients' actual roles matched
their desired roles, and examine whether matching of actual
and desired roles was linked with the type of treatment they
received and their satisfaction with that treatment.
A total
of 1,081 women with early-stage breast cancer were surveyed
about their desired and actual roles in treatment decision
making with their surgeon. Investigators assessed whether
the matching of actual to desired roles was linked with the
type of surgery the women received and their rate of satisfaction.
Sixty-four
percent of the patients wanted a collaborative role in decision-making,
but only 33 percent reported having such a role when they
discussed their treatments with the surgeon. Forty-nine percent
of the women reported an actual role that matched their desired
role. Twenty-five percent had a less active role than they
desired and 26 percent had a more active role than they desired,
reported the researchers.
Patients
whose reported actual role matched their desired role were
no more likely than other women to undergo breast-conserving
surgery, but these women were more satisfied with their treatment
choice than those whose role was less active or more active
than desired, according to the study published in the Journal
of Clinical Oncology.
Overall,
approximately half of patients reported an actual role in
decision-making that matched their desired role.
Source:
Breast Cancer
Week of April 7, 2002
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