Breast cancer survivors more apt to fall

PORTLAND, Ore., March 7 (UPI) -- Chemotherapy and endocrine therapies used to treat breast cancer may affect balance, increasing the risk falls, U.S. researchers said.

Kerri M. Winters-Stone and colleagues at the Oregon Health & Science University Knight Cancer Institute in Portland asked postmenopausal breast cancer survivors whether they had fallen in the past year and then tracked their falls over a six-month study period.

The study, published in the Archives of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, found 58 percent of breast cancer survivors had experienced a fall in the previous year and 47 percent fell within six months after joining the study -- a rate nearly double the 25 percent to 30 percent annual fall rate reported for older adults age 65 and older.

"Our study is the first to consider how breast cancer treatment may increase fall risk by using a comprehensive set of objective measures of fall risk and by exploring mediators of the treatment-falls relationship," Winters-Stone said in a statement.

"Our findings suggest that recently treated postmenopausal breast cancer survivors have higher rates of falling compared with population averages for community-dwelling older adults. Balance disturbances may explain how treatment could have contributed to falls in breast cancer survivors."