Psychosocial Factors and Immune Parameters During Cancer Chemotherapy. Cancer patients are exposed to side-effects during chemotherapy, such as nausea and vomiting elicited by drug administration, or in anticipation of treatment.
Chemotherapy also results in bone marrow suppression.
Psychosocial factors including stress relate to immune parameters in humans and learned immune responses to neutral stimuli have been shown in animals. The aim of this research was to examine anticipatory immune reactions, and the relations between psychosocial factors and immune parameters, in patients treated with cyclic combination chemotherapy for breast or ovarian cancer. The numbers of white blood cells increased significantly between blood sampling at home and at the hospital before infusion. No changes were observed in the female hospital staff serving as controls. Patients were characterized by increased numbers of granulocytes, and decreased numbers of lymphocytes.