Survey for the Side effects of Radiation Therapy Following Breast Cancer Surgery : Comparision of Modified Raidcal Mastectomy and Breast Conservative Surgery

유방암 환자의 수술후 방사선치료의 부작용의 변화 : 유방절제술과 유방보존술의 비교

This study was performed to survey the specific information about the time of onset, frequency, duration, and severity of the side effect of radiation therapy following breast cancer surgery, and identify the difference of these data according to the type of breast cancer surgery : modified radical mastectomy(MRM) vs. breast consevative operation(BCO). 38 breast cancer patients were interviewed with side effect profile about radiation therapy. Interview was done weekley from the start of radiation therapy through 6 weeks and 3 month follow-up interview was done at 3 month after completion of the treatment. The results are as follow : 1. Total score of side effect experienced by the breast cancer patients was rapidly increased at 2-3 week after intiating treatement and continousely raised maintaing high score until completion of the treatement. Some problems like cough, dyspnea and pain were more experienced after treatment. 2. Patients with modified radical mastectomy showed more total score of side effects than patients with breast conservative operation. And both patients with MRM and BCO experienced similar pattern of side effect to radiation therapy. Through these data we concluded that side effect to radiation therapy was not ended at completion of treatement. Patents will continously experiend various problems and suffer from not only acute side effects like skin problem, sore throat and swollowing difficulty but also late effect of the radiation therapy. Clinically these data can be used for oncologic nurse to provide informational interventions to prepare breast cancer patients for the radiation therapy.