Abstract
PurposeCancer treatments often produce undesirable side-effects, such as skin toxicity, impacting on everyday functioning and health-related quality of life (HRQoL). This experimental study sought to determine whether aesthetic products and treatments could significantly decrease perceived skin symptoms, psychological distress and improve skin-related QoL (SRQoL).MethodsAn experimental group composed of 100 breast patients was enrolled for specialized aesthetic treatments at the European Institute of Oncology (IEO) and compared to a control group of 70 breast patients who did not receive any aesthetic treatment. A measure of SRQoL (i.e., Skindex-16) and a distress thermometer were administered longitudinally at three time points: at baseline (T0), at 7 days from beginning of aesthetic treatment (T1) and at 28 days from beginning of aesthetic treatment (T2).ResultsResults demonstrated the efficacy of aesthetic treatment in reducing distress and improving SRQoL: while the experimental group showed significant improvements in all HRQoL areas, the control group worsened. Specifically, at T1 and T2 there were significant improvements on distress and Skindex subscales in the experimental group, with an almost complete remission of perceived symptoms at T2. Moreover, all reported cutaneous reactions significantly improved after the specialized treatments, with no differences in SRQoL in skin reaction type.ConclusionsThese findings demonstrate that aesthetic treatments for side-effects of cancer therapies can alleviate perceived distress and improve skin symptoms and HRQoL.
Highlights
Invasive breast cancer is often treated with mastectomy or conservative surgery combined with radiotherapy (RT) or other cancer treatments, such as cytotoxic chemotherapy (CC) and targeted therapy (TT), depending on the nature and kind of breast cancer [1]
We hypothesize that aesthetic treatments performed by a specialized cosmetologist could significantly improve skin symptoms, patient’s psychological state and daily functioning reducing the negative impact of skin lesions on their health-related quality of life (HRQoL) during cancer treatment
Post hoc comparison with Bonferroni correction showed a constant decrease in distress in the experimental group and a constant increase in the control group
Summary
Invasive breast cancer is often treated with mastectomy or conservative surgery combined with radiotherapy (RT) or other cancer treatments, such as cytotoxic chemotherapy (CC) and targeted therapy (TT), depending on the nature and kind of breast cancer [1]. Women receiving cancer therapy may experience skin-related side-effects that negatively affect adherence to therapy but even health-related quality of life (HRQoL) [3, 4]. For these reasons, preventing and managing skin reactions are becoming increasingly important to. The majority of the skin changes take several weeks from completion of therapy to heal [2] For this reason, healing from skin-related disorders can be perceived as a relentless process due to worsening discomfort and increased skin changes [8]. Most patients report mild to moderate skin-related disorders, the level of distress and the impact on HRQoL is perceived as moderately high [2]
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