Open AccessEffect of Surgery on Quality of Life with Operable Breast Cancer in Limited Resource Environments: Reply
Author(s) -
Steeg Alida F. W.,
De Vries Jolanda,
Roukema Jan A.
Publication year - 2011
Publication title -
world journal of surgery
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.115
H-Index - 148
eISSN - 1432-2323
pISSN - 0364-2313
DOI - 10.1007/s00268-010-0834-4
Subject(s) - medicine , breast cancer , quality of life (healthcare) , modalities , disease , cardiothoracic surgery , abdominal surgery , vascular surgery , personality , stage (stratigraphy) , cancer , general surgery , cardiac surgery , surgery , psychology , nursing , social psychology , social science , paleontology , sociology , biology
We thank Purvi Thakkar et al. for their comments on our article [1]. It is good to see that our results are reproducible. The reported decrease in quality of life may be explained by the fact that a different questionnaire was used. The FACT-B is a disease-specific questionnaire that inquires more into functioning than into satisfaction with functioning. The primary goal of our study was to present surgeons with other factors than only the clinical parameters, such as tumor size, that can help in the decisional process. We hope that more surgeons will assess the personality of a woman with early-stage breast cancer and use this as additional information when counseling her about possible breast cancer treatment modalities.