Optimism matters in the treatment of cancer
11/5/2007 Montreal, Quebec, Canada Gerald Tatist et al Montreal Gazette (www.canada.com/montrealgazette) As health-care professionals in oncology, we wish to respond to The Gazette's Oct. 29 editorial titled "Attitude in facing cancer: Let each person decide how to face cancer." In 1965, Dr. Franz Alexander wrote: "The fact that the mind rules the body is, in spite of its neglect by biology and medicine, the most fundamental fact which we know about the process of life." Traditionally, medicine has focused primarily on the actual disease, not the person with the disease. Attitude matters not because it might or might not prolong life, but because it makes life worth living. A sense of optimism can help patients cope with the many challenges and ramifications of dealing with this potentially life-threatening illness. A sense of resignation can make illness much more difficult to bear. Left unchecked, despair can also adversely affect compliance with treatment and may even lead to full-blown depression. The editorial referred to the University of Pennsylvania study that followed patients with cancers of the head and neck. It concluded attitude did not affect survival rates. However, when you Google cancer survival and attitude, you will find another study on the role of patients' attitudes in cancers of the head and neck, conducted by McGill University researchers, which describes positive predictive effects of dispositional optimism on survival. So we have one study of many dismissing the value of optimism and another of many supporting the value of optimism. What is important [...]