Younger Patients With Breast Cancer Have Unique Needs, Concerns

Younger patients with breast cancer have certain concerns such as fertility, premature menopause, and feelings of isolation, that oncology nurses can help guide them through, explained Ann H. Partridge, MD, MPH.

“For nurse-patient communication with the younger breast cancer patient population, I think the important thing is really understanding the unique-to-being-young or accentuated-by-being-young issues,” Partridge, who is the interim chair of the Department of Medical Oncology at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute said. Partridge is also the co-founder and director of Dana-Farber’s Program for Young Adults With Breast Cancer.

At the 2024 ESMO Congress, Partridge and colleagues presented on research that found that patients with hormone receptor (HR)-positive breast cancer who conceived during a break from endocrine therapy can safely breastfeed.1

READ MORE: Breastfeeding Is OK During Endocrine Therapy Break for HR+ Breast Cancer

At the conference, Partridge sat down with Oncology Nursing News to discuss these findings, as well as the nuanced conversations that oncology nurses may face with patients with breast cancer who are of childbearing age.

Transcript

So for nurse-patient communication with the younger breast cancer patient population, I think the important thing is really understanding the unique-to-being-young or accentuated-by-being-young issues, […which] include fertility, premature menopause. Not really knowing that … a peer group [is] out there, these young women often feel very alone. And that's where our nurse partners can be awesome in terms of helping to plug our patients in [to appropriate support groups] and really show the empathy that they always show in terms of helping our young patients to live with what they're going through and mitigate and palliate either the physical or the emotional symptoms that they may be feeling through their treatment and well into survivorship.

Reference

1. Azim HA, Niman SM, Partridge AH, et al. Breastfeeding in women with hormone receptor-positive breast cancer who conceived after temporary interruption of endocrine therapy results from the POSITIVE trial. Presented at the 2024 European Society for Medical Oncology Congress (ESMO); September 13-17, 2024; Barcelona, Spain. 1814O.