Chemotherapy Has Prolonged Effect on Balance in Postmenopausal Breast Cancer Survivors

Chemotherapy might contribute to balance problems in postmenopausal women with breast cancer, according to researchers from the Knight Cancer Institute at Oregon Health and Science University. They enrolled 59 breast cancer survivors (average age, 58 years) and compared their incidence of falls with the annual reported rate for historical controls living in a community setting.

 

At enrollment, the patients were asked how many falls they had suffered in the previous 12 months and then asked to report any falls to occur in the next 6 months. Approximately 58% of survivors acknowledged falling at least once in the prior year; during the study, 47% of participants fell one or more times. This compares with an annual fall rate of 25% to 30% among the general population of 65-year-old adults.

 

In an attempt to identify why some women are more likely to fall after breast cancer therapy, the researchers evaluated the participants' neuromuscular and balance characteristics. They observed differences in the ability to balance between the women who fell and those who did not. The authors associated chemotherapy use with vestibular changes that they said might have disrupted the sense of balance in some women.

 

Kerri M. Winters-Stone, phD, associate professor and associate scientist at the university, said in a press release, "Our study is the first to consider how breast cancer treatment may increase fall risk by using a comprehensive set of objective measures of fall risk and by exploring mediators of the treatment-falls relationship." She noted that preventing falls is especially important in women with breast cancer, who often have a higher risk of fractures.

 

Complete findings will be published in the April 2011 issue of the Archives of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation (Vol. 92, No. 4).