Ongoing

Breast Cancer Research Centre – WA is a multidisciplinary breast cancer centre situated in Perth, Western Australia. We have previously reported results from our group that approximately 8% of patients with early or locally advanced breast cancer did not commence or complete treatment protocols recommended by the multidisciplinary group (Samarasinghe et al 2019).

Patients who fail to receive recommended systemic treatment have higher likelihood of worse breast cancer outcomes. Our goal is to identify risk factors for treatment non-compliance, with a focus on potentially modifiable psychological factors.

This is a first step to understanding why some patients do not complete potentially curative treatment. If modifiable factors are identified, future research can then be developed to screen for patients at increased risk of non-compliance and enable the development of interventions to assist patient choices.

After the surgical or MO consult in which a treatment recommendation is made, eligible patients will be identified and invited to participate. The investigator or appropriately trained designated team member will obtain written informed consent to participate in the study within 4 weeks of the surgical consult where an appropriate patient is first identified.

The number of patients who decline to participate and their treatment decision will be recorded.