Cognitive and Emotional Assessment of Fatigue During Radiotherapy for Breast Cancer With and Without Homeopathy Treatment

Sixty four female patients who underwent Chemotherapy and are planned to receive adjuvant whole breast radiation in the radiation departmental at the Sheba Medical Center, and who give a written consent for participation, will be included in the study.

Patients will undergo routine CT simulation and will receive 50 Gy in daily fractions of 2 Gy, five times a week (for total of 33 sessions during ~7 weeks, including boost of 8 fractions to the tumor bed) to the whole breast and lymphatic basins, according to the standard departmental protocol. Demographic and cancer treatment information will be collected, as well as Body mass index (BMI). At the first RT session (first assessment) and following 16-20 sessions of radiotherapy (second assessment), all patients will be evaluated for:

(i) fatigue level utilizing the Fatigue Symptom Inventory (FSI). (ii) attention performance utilizing the Pre-Pulse Inhibition (PPI) task. (iii) anxiety level utilizing both the startle response test and examining the Galvanic Skin Response (GSR) differences.

All examination will be conducted after the daily radiotherapy session. The homeopathic doctor will conduct an individual homeopathic evaluation during the second assessment meeting to all participants. According to these assessments, the pharmacist will prepare and provide 64 blinded numbered sets, 40 of which will contain the study remedy and 24 will contain the carrier only (i.e placebo).

Upon entry to the study after meeting the exclusion/inclusion criteria, a number from 1-64 will be drawn and the patient will receive the corresponding treatment.