TOPLINE:

Over a quarter of musicians experienced difficulty with musical endeavors during or after the breast cancer treatment with 57% reporting unresolved issues at survey time. Chemotherapy emerged as the most impactful treatment with 71% of recipients citing it as most detrimental to musical ability.

METHODOLOGY:

Playing instruments and singing require high levels of fine sensorimotor control, making musicians potentially vulnerable to unique manifestations of breast cancer treatment toxicities. These include chemotherapy-induced peripheral neuropathy, upper-extremity dysfunction after surgery and radiation, and joint pain associated with aromatase inhibitors.

A nine-item Musical Toxicity Questionnaire was distributed to 4075 participants in the Mayo Clinic Breast Cancer Registry,

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