Immediate breast reconstruction effects on quality of life of women with mastectomy

PURPOSE: to prospectively evaluate the effects of immediate breast reconstruction on the quality of life of women who underwent mastectomy. METHODS: 76 women that underwent mastectomy at Centro de Atencao Integral a Saude da Mulher da Universidade Estadual de Campinas, in Campinas, Sao Paulo, Brazil, from August 2007 to December 2008, were included. Two groups were formed: 41 women who underwent mastectomy combined with immediate breast reconstruction (M+RI) and 35 that were subjected to mastectomy alone (M). The quality of life evaluation was assessed with the World Health Organization's questionnaire -Quality of Life (WHOQOL-100). The questionnaire was administered on three occasions: at the time of admission, one month after surgery, and again six months after surgery. The WHOQOL-100 scores were calculated according to analysis' guidelines by the World Health Organization. For comparison of the scores between groups, it was used the Student's t-test, Fisher exact test, chi-square test, and Mann-Whitney test. For the analysis of repeated measures over time, ANOVA and ANOVA for repeated measures were used. RESULTS: at all time points evaluated, beginning with the preoperative assessment, the average quality of life scores of the M+IR Group were higher than those of the M Group, primarily in the "physical", "psychological", "level of independence" and "social relationships" domains of the questionnaire. Of the six areas covered by the questionnaire, three ("physical", "social relations", "environment") showed no significant differences between groups. The M+IR Group had a better score (15.5 to 14.9 for the M+IR and 14.3 to 14.2 for M; p=0.04) in the psychological domain. There was a significant reduction in the level of independence in the first month after surgery in both groups, with a significant recovery after six months. CONCLUSIONS: the present results suggest that immediate breast reconstruction is significantly beneficial regarding the psychological aspects of quality of life, without affecting the patient's physical functionality.