Psychiatric morbidity in breast cancer--a review.

Abstract

Clinicians have long observed a substantive relationship between cancer and psychological symptoms. As early as 200 A.D., Galen, a Roman physician, observed that “melancholic” women were more at risk of developing cancer than “sanguine” women1. Nunn in 1822, published his widely quoted ‘Cancer of the Breast’ emphasising his belief that emotional factors can influence the growth of a neoplasm2. Herbert Snow published the first statistical studies in the field in the late nineteenth century3,4,5. However the idea of a psychosomatic concept vanished from the literature when surgical advances and the promise of radiation seemed to be the answer.