Health-related quality of life of pre-menopausal breast cancer survivors

636 Background: Longitudinal studies examining the health-related quality of life (HRQL) of premenopausal breast cancer patients are sparse, and are needed to identify survivorship issues among younger women. Methods: 627 premenopausal women were recruited to the Menstrual Cycle Maintenance and Quality of Life Study between 1998 and 2001 and are still receiving follow-up. Patients were ≤ 45 years old with regular menstrual cycles at the time of diagnosis with a stage 1–3 breast cancer. Multivariate regression techniques were used to investigate which demographic (age, race, education, marital status, number of children), clinical (stage at diagnosis, type of surgery, treatments received, menstrual bleeding status at follow-up), and lifestyle variables (body mass index, cigarette use, alcohol use, exercise and social support) were predictive of HRQL, as measured by the FACT-B total score, at 1, 2, and 3 years post-breast cancer diagnosis. Results: FACT-B total scores improved as the time from diagnosis inc...