Personality traits have been studied extensively as risk and prognostic factors for cancer; however, the association remains unclear. This prospective, population-based cohort study comprised 59,548 Swedish (1974-1999) and Finnish (1976-2004) participants who completed a questionnaire eliciting information for the Eysenck Personality Inventory and on health behavior at baseline. To analyze the association of personality traits extraversion and neuroticism with risk of cancer, the authors identified 4,631 cancer cases for a maximum 30 years of follow-up. To assess the association with cancer survival among the Finnish participants, they identified 2,733 cancer cases and, later, 1,548 deaths for a maximum 29 years of follow-up. Hazard ratios were estimated by treating the personality scales as continuous variables and are presented per one increase in score on each scale. In multivariate analyses, extraversion and neuroticism were not significantly associated with risk of cancers at all sites (extraversion: hazard ratio = 0.99, 95% confidence interval: 0.98, 1.01; neuroticism: hazard ratio = 1.00, 95% confidence interval: 0.99, 1.02). Results showed no significant association between these traits and the hazard ratio for death after cancers at all sites, and they do not support the hypothesis that extraversion and neuroticism are direct risk factors for cancer or survival after cancer.

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BACKGROUND: A few small studies published to date have suggested that major psychosocial problems develop in the partners of cancer patients; however, to the authors' knowledge, no studies to date have addressed their risk for severe depression. In a retrospective cohort study, the risk for hospitalization with an affective disorder of the male partners of women with breast cancer was investigated, using unbiased, nationwide, population-based information. METHODS: Followed were 1,162,596 men born between 1925 and 1973 who were aged 30 years at study entry, resided in Denmark between 1994 and 2006, had no history of hospitalization for an affective disorder, and had lived continuously with the same partner for at least 5 years. A Cox regression analysis included detailed clinical information regarding the diagnosis and treatment of breast cancer and on annually updated socioeconomic and healthrelated indicators obtained from national administrative and disease registers. RESULTS: During the 13 years of follow-up, breast cancer was diagnosed in the partners of 20,538 men. On multivariable analysis, men whose partner was diagnosed with breast cancer were found to be at an increased risk of being hospitalized with an affective disorder (hazards ratio, 1.39; 95%confidence interval, 1.20-1.61), with a dose-response pattern for the severity of breast cancer. Furthermore, men whose partner died after breast cancer had a significant, 3.6-fold increase in risk for an affective disorder when compared with men whose partner survived breast cancer. CONCLUSIONS: The results of the current study supported the hypothesis that men whose partner had breast cancer were at an increased risk for hospitalization with an affective disorder. Cancer 2010;116:5527-34.

Our hypothesis was supported, and anxiety was strongly linked with personality trait and coping style. As a clinical implication, the use of screening instruments to identify these factors and intervention for psychological crisis may be needed.

We conducted a prospective cohort study in Japan to investigate associations between negative psychological aspects and cancer survival. Between July 1999 and July 2004, a total of 1178 lung cancer patients were enrolled. The questionnaire asked about socioeconomic variables, smoking status, clinical symptoms, and psychological aspects after diagnosis. Negative psychological aspects were assessed for the subscales of helplessness/hopelessness and depression. Clinical stage, performance status (PS), and histologic type were obtained from medical charts. The subjects were followed up until December 2004, and 686 had died. A Cox regression model was used to estimate the hazards ratio (HR) of all-cause mortality. After adjustment for socioeconomic variables and smoking status in addition to sex, age, and histologic type, both helplessness/hopelessness and depression subscales showed significant linear positive associations with the risk of mortality (p for trend<0.001 for both). However, after adjustment for clinical state variables in addition to sex, age, and histologic type, these significant linear positive associations were no longer observed (p for trend=0.41 and 0.26, respectively). Our data supported the hypothesis that the association between helplessness/hopelessness and depression and the risk of mortality among lung cancer patients was largely confounded by clinical state variables including clinical stage, PS, and clinical symptoms.

It has been suggested that marital status and social support are associated with survival in cases of lung cancer, and that such an association may be mediated by several factors. In this prospective cohort study, we investigated the effect of marital status and social support on survival after curative resection for non-small cell lung carcinoma (

Subjects with a history of physical disease were significantly and positively associated with psychological distress, and social support did not modify this association for most physical diseases. Even after patients have left hospital following treatment for physical disease, they require continuous monitoring for psychological distress by doctors and paramedics.

Psychological depression is thought to be a predictor of poor survival among cancer patients. The objective of the present study was to investigate the association between depression and survival in surgically treated Japanese patients with non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) L ung cancer is the most common form of cancer and the most common cause of cancer-related death in the world..(1,2) In Japan, lung cancer is the leading cause of death from cancer among men and women, and the incidence of lung cancer has been increasing in recent years. In 2003, the number of lung cancer deaths reached 41 615 (22% of all cancer-related deaths) in men and 15 086 deaths (12% of all cancer-related deaths) in women.(3) For prognosis and for therapeutic strategies, differentiating between non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) and small cell lung cancer (SCLC) is important; these cancers account for nearly 80% and 20% of all lung cancers, respectively.(4) Although radical surgery is the primary treatment for early NSCLC, the long-term survival of patients who undergo surgery alone is disappointing, with estimated 5-year survival rates ranging from 67% for those with pathological stage IA disease to 39% for those with pathological stage IIB disease.(5) Determining progression in patients with NSCLC is difficult, partly because of the marked clinical heterogeneity of patients with this disease. (5) In earlier reports, various individual characteristics such as age, sex, pathological stage, performance status (PS), comorbidity, molecular biological markers, marital status and smoking status were shown to play a role in survival from lung cancer.(6,7) Further clarification of the factors contributing to survival from lung cancer is needed.Depression has also been speculated to be a predictor of survival among lung cancer patients.(6) In most of the earlier studies on the association between depression and cancer survival, potential intermediary factors, like endocrinological or immunological pathways, were assumed to influence the association.(8-10) To date, 11 prospective studies have reported a statistically significant association between depression and survival in patients with various kinds of cancer, not only lung cancer. (11)(12)(13)(14)(15)(16)(17)(18)(19)(20)(21) Of the four prospective studies focusing on lung cancer patients, (15,(22)(23)(24) one found a statistically significant association between higher depression scores and an increased risk of mortality from lung cancer.(15) The other three studies did not find any significant association between depression and survival from lung cancer. (22)(23)(24) The majority of these studies had some methodological limitations, including the failure to control sufficiently for potential confounding variables such as comorbidity, respiratory function, smoking status and social support; (15,(22)(23)(24) the use of a selfreported questionnaire on depression and the absence of a structured clinical interview in some of these studies were further limitations. (15,22,24) To further examin...