This preliminary investigation of the prevalence of psychiatric disorders in terminally ill cancer patients showed that more than half of the patients met the criteria for a DSM-III-R psychiatric disorder; delirium was the most common type of psychiatric disturbance. Further prospective trials are critically important to establishing treatment modalities that promote the psychiatric well-being of patients with terminal illnesses.
Patients with MDD exhibit reduced ability to modulate neural response when adjusting for variable amount of reward. This result suggests that reward size coding in the striatum may represent a neural correlate of motivational anhedonia in MDD patients.
This preliminary investigation of the prevalence of psychiatric disorders in terminally ill cancer patients showed that more than half of the patients met the criteria for a DSM-III-R psychiatric disorder; delirium was the most common type of psychiatric disturbance. Further prospective trials are critically important to establishing treatment modalities that promote the psychiatric well-being of patients with terminal illnesses.
In this report, we investigated the relationship between depressive symptoms and plasma interferon (IFN)-α-like immunoreactivity, cyclic GMP (cGMP) and soluble interleukin-2 receptor (sIL-2R) levels during IFN therapy. An altered mood state was observed in 5 of 26 patients. IFN-α-like immunoreactivity in the depressed group tended to be elevated. cGMP levels of depressed patients were significantly greater than those of control subjects before and 6 weeks after IFN therapy. However, sIL-2R levels were not different between the two groups. These results suggest that a number of patients suffered from depression during IFN therapy and that patients had greater concentrations of cGMP levels.
To clarify the psychiatric liaison issues in cancer care, questionnaires were distributed to physicians at 31 teaching hospitals in Japan, including cancer centers and psychiatrists at 197 teaching hospitals. Data from 329 physicians and 156 psychiatrists showed that the majority of the physicians felt troubled by the psychiatric problems of terminally ill patients. However, actual psychiatric referrals were infrequent. An important factor that interferes with appropriate psychiatric referrals for cancer patients is that most physicians do not usually inform patients of a cancer diagnosis. This, it seems that close communication between physicians and psychiatrists is essential in caring for terminally ill cancer patients in the context of Japanese culture, when the psychiatric consultations are offered.
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