Cancer and Stress: Does It Make a Difference to the Patient When These Two Challenges Collide?
Unit of Cell and Molecular Biology, The Dental School, University of Dundee, Dundee DD1 4HN, UK
*
Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
Cancers 2021, 13(2), 163; https://doi.org/10.3390/cancers13020163
Received: 30 November 2020
/
Revised: 23 December 2020
/
Accepted: 28 December 2020
/
Published: 6 January 2021
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Head and Neck Cancers)
Simple Summary
Head and neck cancers are the sixth most common cancer in the world. The burden of the disease has remained challenging over recent years despite the advances in treatments of other malignancies. The very use of the word malignancy brings about a stress response in almost all adult patients. Being told you have a tumour is not a word anyone wants to hear. We have embarked on a study which will investigate the effect of stress pathways on head and neck cancer patients and which signalling pathways may be involved. In the future, this will allow clinicians to better manage patients with head and neck cancer and reduce the patients’ stress so that this does not add to their tumour burden.
A single head and neck Cancer (HNC) is a globally growing challenge associated with significant morbidity and mortality. The diagnosis itself can affect the patients profoundly let alone the complex and disfiguring treatment. The highly important functions of structures of the head and neck such as mastication, speech, aesthetics, identity and social interactions make a cancer diagnosis in this region even more psychologically traumatic. The emotional distress engendered as a result of functional and social disruption is certain to negatively affect health-related quality of life (HRQoL). The key biological responses to stressful events are moderated through the combined action of two systems, the hypothalamus–pituitary–adrenal axis (HPA) which releases glucocorticoids and the sympathetic nervous system (SNS) which releases catecholamines. In acute stress, these hormones help the body to regain homeostasis; however, in chronic stress their increased levels and activation of their receptors may aid in the progression of cancer. Despite ample evidence on the existence of stress in patients diagnosed with HNC, studies looking at the effect of stress on the progression of disease are scarce, compared to other cancers. This review summarises the challenges associated with HNC that make it stressful and describes how stress signalling aids in the progression of cancer. Growing evidence on the relationship between stress and HNC makes it paramount to focus future research towards a better understanding of stress and its effect on head and neck cancer.
View Full-Text
Keywords:
stress; HNC; glucocorticoid signalling; β-adrenergic signalling; cancer
▼
Show Figures
Figure 1
This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited
MDPI and ACS Style
Iftikhar, A.; Islam, M.; Shepherd, S.; Jones, S.; Ellis, I. Cancer and Stress: Does It Make a Difference to the Patient When These Two Challenges Collide? Cancers 2021, 13, 163. https://doi.org/10.3390/cancers13020163
AMA Style
Iftikhar A, Islam M, Shepherd S, Jones S, Ellis I. Cancer and Stress: Does It Make a Difference to the Patient When These Two Challenges Collide? Cancers. 2021; 13(2):163. https://doi.org/10.3390/cancers13020163
Chicago/Turabian StyleIftikhar, Anem, Mohammad Islam, Simon Shepherd, Sarah Jones, and Ian Ellis. 2021. "Cancer and Stress: Does It Make a Difference to the Patient When These Two Challenges Collide?" Cancers 13, no. 2: 163. https://doi.org/10.3390/cancers13020163
Find Other Styles
Note that from the first issue of 2016, MDPI journals use article numbers instead of page numbers. See further details here.
