Am J Psychiatry 1978; 135:960-963
Copyright © 1978 by American Psychiatric Association
Psychiatric aspects of radiotherapy
BM Forester, DS Kornfeld and J Fleiss
The authors evaluated 200 cancer patients, half of whom received betatron
therapy and half linear accelerator therapy. The incidence and severity of
anxiety and depression were high in both groups; as radiotherapy continued
these symptoms tended to decrease in intensity among the patients treated
with the linear accelerator and to increase among the betatron patients.
Patients who denied knowledge of their diagnosis were initially less
depressed and remained less depressed than those who knew or suspected that
they had cancer.
