Editorial: PsychOncology: clinical psychology for cancer patients—Cancer: the key role of clinical psychology

Citation: Castelli L, Castelnuovo G and Torta R (2015) Editorial: PsychOncology: clinical psychology for cancer patients—Cancer: the key role of clinical psychology. Psychological issues take on great importance in oncology settings from the communication of the diagnosis to the management of the end-of-life phase (Baider and Surbone, 2014; Chaturvedi et al., 2014; Grassi et al., 2015). When diagnosed with cancer, about 30% of patients can suffer from psychological distress or other important mental health conditions The papers of the present research topic give an insight into what taking care of a cancer patient means at the individual, relational, and sociocultural levels. The topics of the papers range from the importance of personality and the psychological distress/psychopathology which cancer patients may experience to the essential role of the caregiver and the relevance of socio-cultural factors. It is now well-proven that psychological distress is a key variable in taking care of cancer patients. A meta-analytic review investigating the longitudinal associations between stress and cancer evidenced in 165 studies that stress-related psychosocial factors are associated with higher cancer incidence in initially healthy populations (Chida et al., 2008). A further 330 studies showed that stress in patients with cancer was related to a poorer rate of survival (Chida et al., 2008). Moreover, individuals with poor social support experienced greater tumor growth and progression, due to increased pro-inflammatory mechanisms (Lutgendorf and Sood, 2011). Poor social support causes an increase of angiogenesis, essential for cancer growth, due to the stress-related production of a cytokine (IL6) acting on the vascular endothelial growth factor. Depression, too, could increase the risk of relapses following cancer treatment and reduce adherence to antineoplastic therapy (Reich, 2008). Moreover, since pain and mood disorders share several pathogenetic mechanisms (Torta and Ieraci, 2013), depression could result in a reduction of the pain threshold (Torta and Munari, 2010). An inflammatory background, mainly due to proinflammatory cytokines, is a central factor that links depression, distress, pain, and cognitive impairment (" chemo-fog ") in cancer patients (Krishnadas and Cavanagh, 2012). The first important step in oncology practice should therefore be screening for psychological distress using well-established clinical instruments, such as the Distress Thermometer (DT) and the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (Castelli et al., 2011; Grassi et al., 2015). A recent PET study on mixed cancer patients highlighted that the DT scores correlated with the activity of brain areas typically involved in stress response: the higher the …