The authors have investigated the effect of personality, as measured with the Eysenck Personality Inventory, on the incidence of cancer among 1,031 persons participating in a Danish health survey in 1976-1977 and followed up for 20 years. They thereby accrued a total of 19,993 person-years. The expected number of cancer cases was estimated on the basis of age-, sex-, and site-specific incidence rates in Copenhagen County, DENMARK: Overall, 113 malignancies were observed among the cohort members between the date of interview and December 31, 1996. Since 114.3 were expected from county incidence rates, the standardized incidence ratio was 0.99 (95% confidence interval: 0.81, 1.19). No statistically significant deviation of the relative risk from unity was seen for any measure of personality, and no excess risk was seen for any particular type of cancer. A regression model, in which adjustment was made for age, sex, calendar period, alcohol consumption, tobacco smoking, psychiatric illness as rated by the interviewing doctor, marital status, and social class, showed no excess risk of cancer among persons considered to be in medium- or high-risk groups according to the Eysenck Personality INVENTORY: The authors' data provide no support for the hypothesis of an association between personality and the risk of cancer.

BACKGROUND Psychic vulnerability has been associated with a number of physical symptoms and diseases. This study was designed to estimate the incidence of cancer in a random sample of persons in the general Danish population in relation to a personality characteristic measured by the Test of Psychic Vulnerability. METHODS The authors examined the cancer incidence in a cohort of 5136 randomly sampled persons age > 25 years living in Copenhagen County, Denmark. The responses to questionnaires and the results of examinations, including the Test of Psychic Vulnerability, were collected during 1982–1984 and during 1991–1992. The observed numbers of cancers were compared with the numbers that would have been expected if the cohort members had experienced the same risk of cancer as the population of Copenhagen County. Regression analyses were performed with the Cox proportional hazards model to adjust for well‐known risk factors for cancer. RESULTS A total of 403 cancers were observed, and 412.02 were expected, yielding a standardized incidence ratio of 0.98 (95% confidence interval [95% CI], 0.88–1.19). The authors did not observe a significant increase in the risk of site specific cancers. The risk for cancer was not influenced by the type of vulnerability in a multivariate analysis (hazards ratio, 1.16; 95% CI, 0.85–1.57). CONCLUSIONS The authors found no increased risk for cancer among psychically vulnerable persons compared with nonvulnerable persons; however, the results indicate that behavior and certain life‐style factors may be determined by personality, which, in turn, may determine the risk for cancer. Cancer 2002;94:3299–306. © 2002 American Cancer Society. DOI 10.1002/cncr.10601

We conducted a population-based prospective cohort study in Denmark to investigate associations between the personality traits and cancer survival. Between 1976Between and 1977Between , 1020 residents of the Copenhagen County completed a questionnaire eliciting information on personality traits and various health habits. The personality traits extraversion and neuroticism were measured using the short form of the Eysenck Personality Inventory. Follow-up in the Danish Cancer Registry for 1976 -2002 revealed 189 incidents of primary cancer and follow-up for death from the date of the cancer diagnosis until 2005 revealed 82 deaths from all-cause in this group. A Cox proportional-hazards model was used to estimate the hazard ratios (HRs) of death from all-cause according to extraversion and neuroticism adjusting for potential confounding factors. A significant association was found between neuroticism and risk of death (HR, 2.3 (95% CI ¼ 1.1 -4.7); Linear trend P ¼ 0.04) but not between extraversion and risk of death (HR, 0.9 (0.4 -1.7); Linear trend P ¼ 0.34). Similar results were found when using cancer-related death. Stratification by gender revealed a strong positive association between neuroticism and the risk of death among women (Linear trend P ¼ 0.03). This study showed that neuroticism is positively associated with cancer survival. Further research on neuroticism and cancer survival is needed.

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Owing to an author error, a wrong statement regarding the interpretation of the results on neuroticism was included in the abstract and in the conclusion. The data themselves are correct, but instead of stating that 'This study showed that neuroticism is positively associated with cancer survival' it should have stated that 'This study showed that neuroticism is negatively associated with cancer survival'. The authors would like to point out that, although they do not think that this represents a major flaw-they would, nevertheless, prefer to have it corrected.