Sexual health after breast cancer: a clinical practice review
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Breast cancer (BC) diagnoses not only present physical challenges but profoundly affect survivors' psychosocial well-being leading to sexual health challenges. This clinical practice review aimed to discuss the current literature and outline the knowledge gaps related to care for sexual health after BC, including survivors' sexual health concerns, as well as available prospective surveillance programs. Current literature on the sexual health challenges of BC survivors was identified and sorted into contributing factors, treatments and interventions, and practice recommendations. This evidence was then used to identify gaps in the literature and make recommendations for future research. BC survivors experience a variety of physical symptoms, such as pain during sex or dyspareunia, which impair sexual well-being. Additionally, dissatisfaction with sexual function may arise due to psychosocial stressors (e.g., depression or body image concerns) and the inverse may worsen psychological well-being. Treatments can have lasting effects that may impact sexual function, often reciprocally related to physical and psychosocial factors. Current treatments for sexual dysfunction involve topical products for vaginal symptoms (e.g., creams, pH-balanced gels, hyaluronic acid or vitamin E suppositories, natural oils, topical estrogen, or lubricants) and various counseling and educational interventions (e.g., mental health counseling, sex therapy, or couples-based psychotherapy). There is a general lack of research considering the ways in which intersectional concerns can impact sexual health experiences after BC. Existing studies do not often consider potential differences in needs that may arise due to ethnicity, age, or socioeconomic background. To address these limitations a significant paradigm shift in survivorship care. This requires moving beyond disease management towards a more holistic, comprehensive, patient-centered approach prioritizing comfort and sexual well-being.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.002 | 0.014 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.002 | 0.001 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.006 | 0.009 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.002 | 0.002 |
| Open science | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Research integrity | 0.002 | 0.001 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.006 | 0.001 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".