As many as one in four breast cancer patients report experiencing symptoms of post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), according to a new study by New York researchers.
Investigators at the Herbert Irving Comprehensive Cancer Center (HICCC) at NewYork-Presbyterian / Columbia University Medical Center found these symptoms in 23 percent of women newly diagnosed with breast cancer
They also found that the risk of PTSD was increased in black and Asian women.
Their findings have been published online ahead of print in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute.
Lead author Alfred I. Neugut, MD, PhD, the Myron M. Studner Professor of Cancer Research, professor of medicine and epidemiology, at Columbia University's College of Physicians & Surgeons and Mailman School of Public Health, and a member of the HICCC said:
This study is one of the first to evaluate the course of PTSD after a diagnosis of breast cancer. We analyzed interview responses from more than 1,100 women. During the first two to three months after diagnosis, nearly a quarter of them met the criteria for PTSD, although the symptoms declined over the next three months. Younger women were more likely to develop symptoms of PTSD, and data suggest Asian and black women are at a more than 50 percent higher risk than white women.
Data was culled from 1,139 participants who had been part of the Breast Cancer Quality of Care Study (BQUAL).
In this study, which ran between 2006 and 2010, women 20 or over with newly diagnosed breast cancer staged between I and III, were recruited from NewYork-Presbyterian / Columbia University Medical Center and Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York City; the Henry Ford Health System in Detroit; and Kaiser-Permanente in Northern California.
They were asked to complete three phone interviews. The first was carried out two to three months following diagnosis and prior to the third cycle of chemotherapy (if they were receiving chemo). A second interview took place four months following diagnosis, and the third, six months following diagnosis.
Investigators believe that PTSD symptoms are not exclusive to breast cancer but likely are present in many different types of cancer. They believe that their work can do the most by contributing to finding ways to improve quality of life among cancer patients, with an indirect hope of improving patient outcomes by curbing these psychological symptoms.
Source: MNT
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