Status of quality of life in breast cancer research before, during and beyond treatment

With 1 million new cases worldwide per year, breast cancer is currently the most common cancer in women. Improvements in early detection and treatment have resulted in a large population of women who are at some stage postdiagnosis; from pretreatment to currently undergoing treatment, to the transition period post-treatment and then to many years after therapy. This review discusses the current findings on patient-reported quality of life (QoL) and factors affecting QoL for breast cancer patients at each of these stages, highlighting areas where QoL has had an impact on clinical decision making. It also highlights areas in need of improvement and the direction of future research that is most likely to result in gains towards the improvement of QoL of the breast cancer patient at every stage postdiagnosis.