Race Differences in Patient-Reported Symptoms during Chemotherapy among Women with Early-Stage Hormone Receptor-Positive Breast Cancer

Background: Symptom burden differences may contribute to racial disparities in breast cancer survival. We compared symptom changes from before to during chemotherapy among women with breast cancer. Methods: This observational study followed a cohort of Black and White women diagnosed with Stage I-III, hormone receptor- positive breast cancer from a large cancer center in 2007 to 2015, and reported symptoms before and during chemotherapy. We identified patients who experienced a one-standard deviation (SD) increase in symptom burden after starting chemotherapy using ences in symptom changes explained by baseline characteristics (sociodemographic, baseline scores, cancer stage) and first-line Results: Among 1,273 patients, Black women (n = 405, 31.8%) were more likely to report one-SD increase in General Physical Symptoms (55.6% vs. 48.2%, P = 0.015), Treatment Side Effects (74.0% vs. 63.4%, P < 0.001), and Acute Distress (27.4% vs. 20.0%, P = 0.010) than White women. Baseline characteristics and first-line chemotherapy regimens explained a large and significant propor-tion of the difference in Acute Distress changes (93.7%, P = 0.001), but not General Physical Symptoms (25.7%, P = 0.25) or Treatment Side Effects (16.4%, P = 0.28). Conclusions: Black women with early-stage breast cancer were more likely to experience significant increases in physical and psychological symptom burden during chemotherapy. Most of the difference in physical symptom changes remained unexplained by baseline characteristics, which suggests inadequate symptom man-agement among Black women.

Automated summary

This study compared symptom changes before and during chemotherapy in breast cancer patients and found that black women experienced significant increases in physical and psychological symptom burden during chemotherapy, indicating inadequate symptom management among black women.