Cross-cultural adaptation, reliability and validity of the Spanish version of the long-term quality of life questionnaire.

Purpose: The aim of this study was to translate, culturally adapt, and evaluate the psychometric properties of the Spanish Long-Term Quality of Life (LTQL) questionnaire. Methods: The LTQL was initially translated into Spanish and cross-culturally adapted based on established guidelines. The Spanish LTQL was administered to patients with breast cancer who had completed their initial treatment 5 years earlier, along with other self-report measures: Quality of Life in Adult Cancer Survivors (QLACS), Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HADS) and EORT-QLQ-BR23. Reliability was evaluated using internal consistency and test-retest. Convergent and known-groups validity were examined. Structural validity as determined by confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) and Rasch analyses was used to assess the unidimensionality and item-functioning of the LTQL domains. Results: Cronbach's alpha were above 0.7 in all domains. Test-retest coefficients were between 0.72 to 0.96 for LTQL domains. LTQL total score was correlated with others total scores of other measures: QLACS (r=-0.39), HADS depression (r=-0.57), HADS anxiety (-0.45) and EORTC-QLQ-BR23 (r=-0.50). CFA provided satisfactory fit indices, with RMSEA value of 0.077 and TLI and CFI values of 0.901 and 0.909, respectively. All factor loadings were higher than 0.40 and statistically significant (P<0.001). Rasch analysis showed that Somatic Concerns domain had 4 misfitting items, and Philosophical/Spiritual View of Life and social Support domains only 1 misfit item. However, unidimensionality was supported for the four domains. Conclusion: The findings support the validity and reliability of the Spanish version of LTQL questionnaire to be used in long-term cancer female survivors.

Can elderly patients with low-risk breast cancer benefit from radiotherapy?

There are few trials published on treatment in elderly women with low-risk breast cancer. Although the clinical behavior is like younger patients, there is a tendency to undertreat them, which may lead to an increase in the risk of local relapses and decrease their survival. The local recurrences omitting adjuvant treatment (tamoxifen or radiotherapy) after breast conserving surgery (BCS) even in low-risk patients is high, reaching up 20%, which is unacceptable. Although tamoxifen and radiotherapy seem to have a similar effect in reducing local recurrence with equal overall survival, the combination of both achieves the maximum benefit with local relapses of less than 2%. In recent years two studies have been published and were designed specifically for elderly patients. The CALGB 9343 and the PRIME II trials recommend omitting radiotherapy in patients with low-risk tumors treated with BCS and tamoxifen based on a similar survival, but with an increase in local relapses when radiotherapy is omitted, 10% at 10 years vs. 2%. There is no basis to ensure that a treatment with tamoxifen has less toxicity in this group of patients who are usually poly-treated, and it seems that treatment compliance is much lower than expected. The decrease in the number of sessions in external radiotherapy with hypofractionation and accelerate partial breast irradiation, especially intraoperative radiotherapy (IORT) with a single session, makes this recommendation very controversial. Elderly patients may benefit from radiation therapy after BCS.