Being a mother with cancer: achieving a sense of balance in the transition process.

For women with cancer and with children living at home, the demands of being a good mother while undergoing treatments and recovering from illness have been described as a difficult life process. The aim of this study was to further examine the transition process with focus on women's experience of their responsibility toward their children. Interviews from 2 previous studies investigating the transition process of women with cancer were gathered and were subjected to a qualitative secondary analysis, an analytic expansion of the transition process.

Body experience and reliance in some women diagnosed with cancer.

Physical disease, like cancer, can be perceived as a psychological crisis. Part of this crisis concerns changes in the body. The aim of this study was to describe the phenomenon "body experience" with special attention to "body reliance" among women with cancer.

Experience of dealing with moral responsibility as a mother with cancer.

This study explored how women with a diagnosis of cancer (lymphoma) deal with moral concerns related to their responsibility as parents. Ten women with cancer and who had children living at home were interviewed. The interviews were analysed according to the constant comparative method used in grounded theory.

Quality of life in women with breast cancer during the first year after random assignment to adjuvant treatment with marrow-supported high-dose chemotherapy with cyclophosphamide, thiotepa, and carboplatin or tailored therapy with Fluorouracil, epirubicin, and cyclophosphamide: Scandinavian Breast Group Study 9401.

Purpose: To compare, in high-risk breast cancer patients, the effects on health-related quality of life (HRQoL) of two adjuvant treatments. Treatments were compared at eight points during the first year after random assignment to treatment with tailored fluorouracil, epirubicin, and cyclophosphamide (FEC) therapy for nine courses versus induction FEC therapy for three courses followed by high-dose chemotherapy with cyclophosphamide, thiotepa, and carboplatin (CTCb) supported by peripheral-blood stem cells.

Patients And Methods: From March 1994 to March 1998, 525 breast cancer patients (estimated relapse risk > 70% within 5 years with standard therapy) were included in the Scandinavian Breast Group 9401 study.

Side effects of adjuvant endocrine treatment in premenopausal breast cancer patients: a prospective randomized study.

Purpose: To compare the effect of adjuvant endocrine therapies with and without chemotherapy on physical symptoms, anxiety, and depressive symptoms in premenopausal women with breast cancer in a randomized clinical trial (the Zoladex in Premenopausal Patients trial).

Patients And Methods: The patients were randomly assigned to goserelin, goserelin plus tamoxifen, tamoxifen alone, or no endocrine therapy. The duration of the endocrine treatment was 2 years.

The meaning of breast cancer.

Breast cancer patients' perception of illness could influence preferences in decision-making. According to Lipowsky, the meaning of illness might influence coping abilities and he suggests eight categories of meaning as prevalent in our culture: 'challenge', 'enemy', 'punishment', 'weakness', 'irreparable loss', 'relief', 'strategy' and 'value'. In this study 187 Swedish breast cancer patients chose one of these eight categories as their meaning of breast cancer.

Men with cancer. Changes in attempts to master the self-image as a man and as a parent.

Little is known about men's experience of how cancer affects their role as a father. The aim of this study was to gain an understanding of changes in these men's everyday family lives. The study had an interpretative descriptive design, utilizing the concept of transition as a fore structure.