News, Clinical Research: Reply Regarding Emotional States do not Predict Survival in Cancer Patients

James C. Coyne is a psychiatrist and researcher at the University of Pennsylvania. Dr. Coyne is the lead author of a 2007 study published in the journal Cancer about the factors of emotional well-being in relation to long-term outcome of patients with cancer. Dr. Coyne recently sent me an email, asking that links to his response to Dr. Spiegel be noted on the blog, so that his side of the discussion could be read by others.

His request is fair. This series of events began with a blog post I wrote, dated Oct 23 2007, citing remarks about the study made by Dr. David Spiegel, a researcher at Stanford University. (Editors note: the original link to Google News in the Oct 2007 blog-post no longer works. Try this search on Google News Archive instead).

What I should have included in that posting is a link to the following item – dated Oct 22 2007 – found on Reuters Health which quotes Dr. James Coyne about his research study published in Cancer:

” Emotional status”neither directly affected progression or death nor functioned as a lurking variable,” Coyne and colleagues report. Based on this study and the published literature, credible evidence that cancer patients’ participation in psychotherapy or support groups prolongs their lives is lacking, they note.

“If cancer patients want psychotherapy or to be in a support group,” Dr. Coyne went on to say, “they should be given the opportunity to do so. There can be lots of emotional and social benefits. But they should not seek such experiences solely on the expectation that they are extending their lives. “

To view a more extensive list of papers indexed by journal published in Medline by James C. Coyne and his associates, link to PubMed (click here).

Also see an article on Womenshealth.gov (Oct 22 2007) detailing the study for patients.

Thank you, Dr. Coyne.

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