Shoulder morbidity after treatment for breast cancer is bilateral and greater after mastectomy

AbstractBackground. A recent study in our laboratory found significant differences in scapular kinematics between the affected and unaffected sides of women reporting shoulder pain following treatment for breast cancer. An earlier smaller study from our laboratory found reduced muscle activity from four key muscles and an association with greater shoulder pain and disability. The aims of this study were to: correlate altered muscle activity from a larger sample with observed movement deviations; compare within subject movement and muscle deviations in survivors with healthy variation; explore the impact of a mastectomy vs. a wide local excision (WLE) on the observed deviations. Method. Cross-sectional study. One hundred and fifty-five women treated for unilateral carcinoma of the breast and 21 age-matched healthy women were included in the study. All patients filled out the Shoulder Pain and Disability Index (SPADI). Three-dimensional (3D)-kinematic data and EMG muscle activity were recorded during scapti...