Depressive symptoms during and after radiotherapy for head and neck cancer

Abstract

Patients with a higher risk of depression should receive long-term monitoring during and after the end of radiotherapy, and prompt intervention strategies should be applied.

Prevalence and correlates of symptoms and uncertainty in illness among head and neck cancer patients receiving definitive radiation with or without chemotherapy

“…Study findings related to symptoms are congruent with published literature regarding symptoms and treatment side effects among head and neck cancer patients [1,3,5,[30][31][32][33]. Patients experienced symptoms as early as the first week of radiation.…”

A longitudinal study on anxiety, depressive and adjustment disorder, suicide ideation and symptoms of emotional distress in patients with cancer undergoing radiotherapy

“…The symptoms increase from pre-radiotherapy to after radiotherapy, and decrease in the following months [5,6,16]. Depression symptoms increase over the course of radiotherapy and persist to the follow-up period [5,14,20,21]. At the start of radiotherapy, there is a high level of anxiety symptoms, which improve afterwards [6,7].…”

Measuring Somatic Symptoms With the CES–D to Assess Depression in Cancer Patients After Treatment: Comparison Among Patients With Oral/Oropharyngeal, Gynecological, Colorectal, and Breast Cancer

“…28 During radiotherapy in oral and oropharyngeal cancer patients, several eating-related side effects are described, which affect the outcome of depression questionnaires. 29,30 From these studies, no clear conclusion can be made about the role of somatic items in the assessment of depression in cancer patients. From the above, it is clear that the prevalence of depression in cancer patients is high, and there is concern about a potential similarity of the somatic symptoms caused by cancer treatment and those caused by depression; these similarities may increase the percentages of false-positive depression findings assessed with a questionnaire when somatic items are included.…”