Quantitative and Clinical Description of Postural Instability in Women With Breast Cancer Treated With Taxane Chemotherapy
Presented, in part, to the American Physical Therapy Association Combined Sections meeting, February 1–5, 2006, San Diego, CA; the Supportive Oncology meeting, October 6–8, 2005, Chicago, IL; and the International Society of Posture and Gait Research XVIIth Conference, May 29–June 2, 2005, Marseille, France.
Abstract
Wampler MA, Topp KS, Miaskowski C, Byl NN, Rugo HS, Hamel K. Quantitative and clinical description of postural instability in women with breast cancer treated with taxane chemotherapy.
Objective
To describe the postural control of women who received taxane chemotherapy for treatment of breast cancer using quantitative and clinically feasible measures.
Design
Prospective descriptive study.
Setting
University-based comprehensive cancer center.
Participants
Twenty women who completed taxane treatment for breast cancer and 20 healthy controls participated in this study.
Interventions
Not applicable.
Main Outcome Measures
Two quantitative measures of postural control were used, Sensory Organization Test (SOT) and center of pressure (COP) velocities. Two clinically feasible measures of postural control were used, the Fullerton Advanced Balance Scale (FABS) and Timed Up & Go (TUG) test.
Results
Compared with healthy controls, women with breast cancer had poorer postural control on all of the outcome measures. FABS and TUG scores correlated moderately with SOT and COP scores.
Conclusions
After taxane chemotherapy, women with breast cancer show significantly increased postural instability compared with matched controls. Clinically feasible measures of postural control correlated with quantitative tests. These results suggest that these clinical measures may be useful to screen patients to determine who may benefit from rehabilitation.
aDepartment of Rehabilitation, Harrison Medical Center, Bremerton, WA
bDepartment of Physical Therapy and Rehabilitation Science, University of California School of Medicine, and Graduate Program in Physical Therapy, San Francisco State University, San Francisco, CA
cDepartment of Physiological Nursing, University of California School of Nursing, San Francisco, CA
dSchool of Medicine, University of California, San Francisco, CA
eDepartment of Kinesiology, San Francisco State University, San Francisco, CA.
Reprint requests to Meredith A. Wampler, PT, DPTSc, Harrison Medical Center, Rehabilitation Services, 2520 Cherry Ave, Bremerton, WA 98310
Supported by the California Breast Cancer Research Program, dissertation award (grant no. 10GB-0001).
No commercial party having a direct financial interest in the results of the research supporting this article has or will confer a benefit upon the author(s) or upon any organization with which the author(s) is/are associated.
ABSTRACT