Sullivan CW et al. – This study aimed at determining how concurrent symptoms that occur in patients with breast cancer who undergo chemotherapy (CTX) cluster together and how these symptom clusters change over a period of time. This can provide insights into the treatment of these co–occurring symptoms. The results of the study provided insights into the most common symptom clusters in these patients, and demonstrated that the most common symptoms within each cluster appear to be relatively stable across the 2 dimensions (occurrence and severity) and across time.

Methods

• A modified version of the Memorial Symptom Assessment Scale was used to assess the occurrence and severity of the 38 symptoms at each of the assessments.

Results

• Of the 8 distinct symptom clusters that were identified across 2 symptom dimensions (occurrence and severity) and 3 assessments, only 5 were relatively stable across both dimensions and across time (psychological, hormonal, nutritional, gastrointestinal, and epithelial).
• Although, 2 of the additional clusters varied by time, they did not vary by symptom dimension (ie, sickness behavior, weight change).