Study suggests stress before cancer diagnosis can raise death risk PHOENIX -- Early-stage breast cancer could be most likely to kill women who had severe stress -- a family death, divorce, financial crisis -- in the year before diagnosis, a study says. The research tracked 80 patients over seven years, starting within a year of their diagnosis. There were 20 recurrences and 15 deaths. "It's a very small study to be making any sweeping conclusion. But it does pose questions that need to be followed up on," says Frances Visco, president of the National Breast Cancer Coalition, an education and advocacy group in Washington, D.C. The women, all diagnosed with Stage 2 cancer that had not been detected beyond the lymph nodes, filled out questionnaires about stressors in their lives. Severe stress after their cancer diagnosis had no relation to recurrence or death, says psychiatrist Karen Weihs of George Washington University School of Medicine in Washington, D.C. But major troubles in the year before diagnosis nearly tripled the women's odds of having a recurrence or dying from the disease, Weihs says. She and co-author Diane Blyler reported at the American Psychosomatic Society meeting here. Breast cancer is so stressful that it can swamp any other troubles, blurring the differences in life stress among the women after diagnosis, Weihs speculates. But terrible jolts in the year before diagnosis could affect the body's ability to fight off disease, Weihs says. For example, post-traumatic stress disorder impairs the immune system. Women in the study had sons who were fighting AIDS, had lost their jobs and faced other traumas. "Their immune system may already be maxed out," says Weihs, so they could be vulnerable to more lethal forms of cancer. Psychologist Steven Tovian has counseled breast cancer patients for 25 years. He says he sees no tie between life stress before diagnosis and dying, "but it would be difficult to prove either way." [03/11/2003; USA Today] Remember we are NOT Doctors and have NO medical training. This site is like an Encylopedia - there are many pages, many links on many topics. Support our work with any size DONATION - see left side of any page - for how to donate. You can help raise awareness of CAM.