Long-Term Patient-Reported Arm Symptoms in Breast Cancer Survivors

Background Understanding long-term arm symptoms in breast cancer survivors is critical given excellent survival in the modern era. Methods This cross-sectional study included patients treated for stage 0–III breast cancer at our institution from 2002 to 2012. Patient-reported arm symptoms were collected from the EORTC QLQ-BR23 questionnaire. We used linear regression to evaluate adjusted associations between locoregional treatments and the continuous Arm Symptom (AS) score (0–100; higher score reflects more symptoms). Results A total of 1126 patients expressed interest in participating and 882 (78.3%) completed the questionnaire. Mean time since surgery was 10.5 years. There was a broad distribution of locoregional treatments, including axillary lymph node dissection (ALND) in 37.1% of patients, mastectomy with reconstruction in 36.5% of patients, and post-mastectomy radiation in 38.2% of patients. Overall, 64.3% (95% confidence interval [CI] 61.1–67.4%) of patients reported no arm symptoms, 17.0% (95% CI 14.7–19.6%) had one mild symptom, 9.4% (95% CI 7.7–11.5%) had two or more mild symptoms, and 9.3% (95% CI 7.6–11.4%) reported one or more severe symptoms. Adjusted AS scores were significantly higher with ALND versus sentinel node biopsy ( β 3.5, p = 0.01), and with autologous reconstruction versus all other breast/reconstructive surgery types ( β 4.5–5.5, all p < 0.05). There was a significant interaction between axillary and breast/reconstructive surgery, with the greatest effect of ALND in those with mastectomy with implant ( β 9.7) or autologous ( β 5.7) reconstruction. Conclusions One in three patients reported arm symptoms at a mean of 10 years from treatment for breast cancer, although rates of severe symptoms were low (<10%). Attention is warranted to the arm morbidity related to both axillary and breast surgery during treatment counseling and survivorship.