Depressed and anxious mood and T-cell cytokine expressing populations in ovarian cancer patients

Abstract

The adaptive immune response of ovarian cancer patients has been linked to survival, and is known to be impaired in the tumor microenvironment. Little is known about relationships between biobehavioral factors such as depressed mood and anxiety and the adaptive immune response in ovarian cancer. Thirty-seven patients with epithelial ovarian cancer and 14 patients with benign neoplasms completed psychosocial questionnaires pre-surgery. Lymphocytes from peripheral blood, tumor, and ascites (fluid around the tumor), were obtained on the day of surgery. Expression of the Type-1 cytokine interferon gamma (IFNγ), and the Type-2 cytokine interleukin-4 (IL-4) by T-helper (CD4 + ) and T-cytotoxic (CD8 + ) cells was measured under autologous tumor-stimulated, polyclonally-stimulated, or unstimulated conditions. Links with mood were examined. Among cancer patients, marked elevations in unstimulated and tumor-stimulated Type-2 responses were seen, particularly in ascites and tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes (P values < 0.01). With polyclonal stimulation, lymphocytes from all compartments expressed elevated Type-1 cytokines (P values <0.014). Depressed and anxious mood were both associated with significantly lower ratios of polyclonally-stimulated CD4 + cells producing IFNγ (TH 1 cells) vs. IL-4 (TH 2 cells) in all compartments (depressed mood: P = 0.012; anxiety: P = 0.038) and depressed mood was also related to lower ratios of polyclonally-stimulated CD8 + cells producing IFNγ (TC 1 ) vs. IL-4 (TC 2 ) (P =0.035). Although effects of polyclonal stimulation should be generalized with caution to the in vivo immune response, findings suggest that depressed and anxious mood are associated with greater

Tumor Epidermal Growth Factor Receptor Genotype and Depression in Stage IV Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer

“…A final sample of 53 cases was included in the current analysis, consistent with sample sizes in prior studies of biological correlates of depression in cancer [30,31]. The mean age of patients was 62.2 years (standard deviation [SD], 12.8 years) ( Table 1).…”

Effector and Regulatory CD4+ T helper lineages in cancer

“…Furthermore, Th1 cytokines can promote anti-tumour responses and utilise a granzymeperforin-dependent pathway for killing cancer cells 35 . Th2 responses have been associated with several cancers such as pancreatic cancer 36,37 , oesophageal and gastric cancer 38 , melanoma 39 and ovarian cancer 40 . The role of Th17 responses in cancer is context-dependent…”

Hypnosis in Cancer Patients: Can We Do Better?

“…Depression has also been suggested to shorten survival because it reduces treatment compliance, but also because it increases the suicide rate (Reich, 2007). Another reason to manage depression in cancer patients is that this symptom correlates to poor immune response (Lutgendorf, 2008;Steel, 2007) and worse prognosis (Watson, 1999;Hjerl, 2003). This makes depression a major target for psychosocial intervention (Spiegel, 2003).…”