PrefeRences And ChemoTherapy In Breast Cancer patiEnts

The aim of the present study is to ask women treated with adjuvant or neoadjuvant chemotherapy for breast cancer what survival benefit would justify the treatment. The benefit should be evaluated in terms of Survival rate trade off and Survival time trade off value. The analyses will be conducted into three different groups of patients to value the survival benefit expected: 1. before to start the chemotherapy 2. during chemotherapy 3. after the end of chemotherapy

The chemotherapy is generally proposed a large number of early breast cancer patients to reduce the risk of recurrence and death. However chemotherapy is associated with side effects that impact the quality of life of the patients. Patients are more likely to accept treatment on the basis of presented relative rather than absolute risks and so the question arises as to whether unrealistic improvements in outcome are expected by patients. The interviews with patients in the proposed trial will elicit the expected gains both in terms of survival and life years and will be able to assess the proportion of patients who considered an improvement of realistic size was sufficient to justify the treatment.