Breast cancer survivors often rate post-treatment breast appearance only 'fair'
Tuesday, November 2, 2010 - 10:00
in Health & Medicine
A third of breast cancer survivors who received the breast-conserving treatments lumpectomy and radiation rate the appearance of their post-treatment breast as only "fair" or "poor" in comparison to their untreated breast, according to a new University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine study that will be presented today at the 52nd Annual Meeting of the American Society for Radiation Oncology (ASTRO) in San Diego. In addition, one fifth of patients report complications including chronic pain in their breast or arm and loss of arm or shoulder flexibility following their treatment, the study authors found.