Chest wall pain as a late effect following radiotherapy for breast cancer: A systematic review of prevalence and risk factors☆
Lisa Durrant, Rachel Harris, Charlotte Atkinson, Sara Faithfull · 2026
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Description
Lisa Durrant and co-authors review how often chest wall pain appears as a late effect of radiotherapy for breast cancer. About sixty percent of women with this cancer receive radiation, and many report lasting pain that cuts into quality of life, yet the pain's location, severity, and causes are poorly mapped. The team searched four databases for studies from 2005 to 2025 that graded chest wall pain more than three months after treatment.
Eight studies covering about fifty-five hundred patients qualified. Pooled results put chest wall pain at thirty-four percent; most cases were mild, though about six percent were moderate to severe. Younger age, a boost dose to the tumour bed, and hot spots above the planned dose looked like possible risk factors, but findings clashed across studies. The authors say this pain is under-recognised and should be tracked as a distinct late effect in future research.
Catalog record
| CREATOR | Lisa Durrant, Rachel Harris, Charlotte Atkinson, Sara Faithfull |
|---|---|
| YEAR | 2026 |
| COLLECTION | PAPERS |
| FORMAT | TXT |
| FILE SIZE | 55 KB |
| VERSION | 1.0 |
| LICENSE | CC BY 4.0 |
| RIGHTS | CC BY |
| SOURCE | Europe PMC |