UICC World Cancer Congress 2006

Objective: Using telephone counseling, our objective is to inform female Hodgkin's disease (HD) survivors, 35 and younger at diagnosis, of their increased risk for breast cancer and encourage them to seek breast cancer screening.

Methods: 471 women, treated at Stanford and received thoracic irradiation before age 35, alive and HD-free at last contact were referred to the project. Following screening for being on pediatric regimen (N=27); breast or other cancers (20%); death or current severe illness, or inability to contact, 157 the pre-test and were randomized (60% response and 84% retention rate). The sample was white (89%), insured (96%), married and employed(67%), educated (60% college graduates), treated by chemotherapy (67%), 11 years post-diagnosis (11 years). Many reported late effects: thyroid problems (70%), infection risk from splenectomy (17%), and heart disease (13%).

Results: There was a positive intervention effect on mammography maintenance: the odds of being in maintenance at post-test compared to pre-test were greater in the intervention group than in the control group (OR=3.6). . Women were more likely to be in mammography maintenance at pre- or post-test if at pre-test they were married (OR=5.7), employed (OR=2.3), more worried about breast cancer (OR=1.4 per unit of scale), or received an annual physical examination (OR=2.2). Women under age 40 were much less likely to be in maintenance than were those age 45 and over (age 35-39 OR=0.2; under age 35 OR=0.1).