The relationship between cancer patient's fear of recurrence and radiotherapy : a systematic review and meta-analysis
Abstract
OBJECTIVE: This review aims to provide an overview of the current knowledge available on the nature and extent of the relationship between external-beam radiotherapy (RT) and fear of cancer recurrence (FoR). METHODS: PubMed, MEDLINE and EMBASE databases were searched to identify relevant studies. Systematic review procedures were followed including a quality assessment. Meta-analysis of suitable studies was conducted. RESULTS: Twenty-five eligible studies were included in the systematic review and 15 of them were included in further meta-analysis. Meta-analysis of the available data confirmed a weak relationship between RT and FoR (15 studies, 9567 patients, overall r = 0.053, 95%, CI: 0.021-0.085, P = 0.001). Subgroup analysis based on cancer site (breast cancer versus other types of cancer) revealed that the correlation between RT and FoR was statistically significant in 'other cancer' group (P˂0.001) but was nonsignificant in 'breast cancer' group (P = 0.538). CONCLUSIONS: While meta-analysis reports a statistically significant association between cancer patient's FoR and the receipt of RT, these results should be interpreted with caution due to significant variability between studies. Further longitudinal studies should be conducted to address the trajectory of FoR over RT in greater detail.
Citation
Yang , Y , Cameron , J & Humphris , G 2017 , ' The relationship between cancer patient's fear of recurrence and radiotherapy : a systematic review and meta-analysis ' , Psycho-Oncology , vol. 26 , no. 6 , pp. 738-746 . https://doi.org/10.1002/pon.4224
Publication
Psycho-Oncology
Status
Peer reviewed
ISSN
1057-9249Type
Journal item
Rights
© 2016, John Wiley & Sons Ltd. This work is made available online in accordance with the publisher’s policies. This is the author created, accepted version manuscript following peer review and may differ slightly from the final published version. The final published version of this work is available at onlinelibrary.wiley.com / https://dx.doi.org/10.1002/pon.4224
Description
The authors are also grateful to the Breast Cancer Now for supporting this research (grant reference number 6873).Collections
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