Source: www.dailyrx.com Author: staff Long-term treatment can affect how cancer survivors manage in the world. The fancy phrase for this is “psychosocial functioning.” A recent study looked at how head and neck cancer survivors get along after treatment. Depression is not uncommon among head and neck cancer survivors, researchers found in this new study. However, not many of the survivors in the study sought help for their depression with either antidepressants or therapy. Physicians could assist by screening for psychosocial problems because depression is very treatable, according to one expert. Allen M. Chen, MD, of the University of California, Davis, and now of the David Geffen School of Medicine at the University of California, Los Angeles, led this study. Dr. Chen and colleagues were looking at the rates of depression among head and neck cancer survivors who had received radiation therapy to treat the disease. “The treatment of head and neck cancer can lead to devastating impact on psychosocial functioning due to the many important structures located in the head and neck region," Tobenna Nwizu, MD, a solid tumor oncologist with the Taussig Cancer Institute at Cleveland Clinic, told dailyRx News. “Functions like speech, swallowing, taste and salivation can all be affected,” said Dr. Nwizu, who was not involved in this study. Treatment can also affect appearance, cause dry mouth and increase the risk of aspiration (sucking food into the airway), according to the authors. For this study, the researchers asked 211 head and neck cancer survivors to complete a [...]