Having sessions with a psychologist to learn how to reduce stress helped women with recurrent breast cancer live longer, with better quality of life, according to new research from the US.
Researchers studied women with newly diagnosed Stage II or III breast cancer who were randomly assigned to one of two groups: intervention and assessment-only. In addition to normal assessments, the women in the intervention group had sessions with a psychologist where they learned more about causes of cancer and how to reduce stress, and the other group just had the assessments.
Andersen, who is also a researcher at the Ohio State University Comprehensive Cancer Center - James Cancer Hospital and Solove Research Institute, told the press that:
"Patients in the intervention arm evidenced significant emotional improvement and more favorable immune responses in the year following recurrence diagnosis."
"In contrast, stress remained unabated and immunity significantly declined in the assessment-only group," she added.
Previous studies have already shown that psychological stress disrupts the immune system, impairs quality of life, and causes people to neglect their health.
In a previous study where they followed women with breast cancer for 11 years, Andersen and colleagues found that those who received psychological support had a 45 per cent lower risk of their breast cancer recurring.
In this study they wanted to see what effect the intervention might have on survival.
The participants were 227 women with newly diagnosed Stage II or III breast cancer who were randomly assigned to the assessment-only or the intervention group where they received psychological therapy that aimed to help them understand more about cancer and stress, learn practical ways to reduce stress and improve quality of life, and how to stick to a plan to change behavior.
The therapy also covered how to improve communication with their medical team, increase their wellbeing during treatment, speed up recovery and improve their overall health.
During 11 years of follow up, 62 of the participants were diagnosed with recurrent breast cancer. Of these, 23 intervention and 18 assessment-only participants remained available for further further biobehavioral study.
The analysis showed that after recurrence, the women who had previously received the psychological therapy had a 59% lower risk of dying of breast cancer (intention to treat analysis revealed reduced risk of death for intervention arm: hazard ratio of 0.41, P = 0.014).
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