Study: Breast Cancer Patients Want More Involvement in Treatment Decisions

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. "These patients were more satisfied with their treatment choice than other patients, suggesting that women with early-stage breast cancer may benefit from surgeons' efforts to identify their preferences for participation in decisions and tailor the decision-making process to them," concluded the researchers.

Other Sources: Journal of Clinical Oncology