Informing Future Research Priorities Into the Psychological and Social Problems Faced by Cancer Survivors: A Rapid Review and Synthesis of the Literature.

Informing future research priorities into the psychological and social problems faced by cancer survivors: A rapid review and synthesis of the literature.

Eur J Oncol Nurs. 2013 Apr 22;
Jarrett N, Scott I, Addington-Hall J, Amir Z, Brearley S, Hodges L, Richardson A, Sharpe M, Stamataki Z, Stark D, Siller C, Ziegler L, Foster C

PURPOSE: To establish what is known regarding the psychological and social problems faced by adult cancer survivors (people who are living with and beyond a diagnosis of cancer) and identify areas future research should address. METHOD: A rapid search of published literature reviews held in electronic data bases was under taken. Inclusion and exclusion criteria, and removal of duplicated papers, reduced the initial number of papers from 4051 to 38. Twenty-two review papers were excluded on grounds of quality and 16 review papers were selected for appraisal. RESULTS: The psychological and social problems for cancer survivors are identified as depression, anxiety, distress, fear of recurrence, social support/function, relationships and impact on family, and quality of life. A substantial minority of people surviving cancer experience depression, anxiety, and distress or fear associated with recurrence or follow up. There is some indication that social support is positively associated with better outcomes. Quality of life for survivors of cancer appears generally good for most people, but an important minority experience a reduction in quality of life, especially those with more advanced disease and reduced social and economic resources. The majority of research knowledge is based on women with breast cancer. The longer term implications of cancer survival have not been adequately explored. CONCLUSIONS: Focussing well designed research in the identified areas where less is already known about the psychological and social impact of cancer survival is likely to have the greatest impact on the wellbeing of people surviving cancer. HubMed – depression

 

Depression in paediatric chronic fatigue syndrome.

Arch Dis Child. 2013 Apr 25;
Bould H, Collin SM, Lewis G, Rimes K, Crawley E

OBJECTIVE: To describe the prevalence of depression in children with chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS)/myalgic encephalomyelitis (ME) and investigate the relationship between depression in CFS/ME and clinical symptoms such as fatigue, disability, pain and school attendance. DESIGN: Cross-sectional survey data using the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HADS) collected at assessment. SETTING: Specialist paediatric CFS/ME service in the South West. PATIENTS: Children aged 12-18 years with CFS/ME. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURE: Depression was defined as scoring >9 on the HADS depression scale. RESULTS: 542 subjects had complete data for the HADS and 29% (156/542) (95% CI 25% to 33%) had depression. In a univariable analysis, female sex, poorer school attendance, and higher levels of fatigue, disability, pain, and anxiety were associated with higher odds of depression. Age of child and duration of illness were not associated with depression. In a multivariable analysis, the factors most strongly associated with depression were disability, with higher scores on the physical function subscale of the 36 item Short Form (SF-36). CONCLUSIONS: Depression is commonly comorbid with CFS/ME, much more common than in the general population, and is associated with markers of disease severity. It is important to screen for, identify and treat depression in this population. HubMed – depression

 

Inhibition of inositol monophosphatase (IMPase) at the calbindin-D28k binding site: Molecular and behavioral aspects.

Eur Neuropsychopharmacol. 2013 Apr 22;
Levi I, Eskira Y, Eisenstein M, Gilon C, Hoffman A, Talgan Y, Fanous J, Bersudsky Y, Belmaker R, Agam G, Almog O

Bipolar-disorder (manic-depressive illness) is a severe chronic illness affecting ?1% of the adult population. It is treated with mood-stabilizers, the prototypic one being lithium-salts (lithium), but it has life threatening side-effects and a significant number of patients fail to respond. The lithium-inhibitable enzyme inositol-monophosphatase (IMPase) is one of the viable targets for lithium’s mechanism of action. Calbindin-D28k (calbindin) up-regulates IMPase activity. The IMPase-calbindincomplex was modeled using the program MolFit. The in-silico model indicated that the 55-66 amino-acid segment of IMPase anchors calbindin via Lys59 and Lys61 with a glutamate in between (Lys-Glu-Lys motif) and that the motif interacts with residues Asp24 and Asp26 of calbindin. We found that differently from wildtype calbindin, IMPase was not activated by mutated calbindin in which Asp24 and Asp26 were replaced by alanine. Calbindin’s effect was significantly reduced by a linear peptide with the sequence of amino acids 58-63 of IMPase (peptide 1) and by six amino-acid linear peptides including at least part of the Lys-Glu-Lys motif. The three amino-acid peptide Lys-Glu-Lys or five amino-acid linear peptides containing this motif were ineffective. Mice administered peptide 1 intracerebroventricularly exhibited a significant anti-depressant-like reduced immobility in the forced-swim test. Based on the sequence of peptide 1, and to potentially increase the peptide’s stability, cyclic and linear pre-cyclic analog peptides were synthesized. One cyclic peptide and one linear pre-cyclic analog peptide inhibited calbindin-activated brain IMPase activity in-vitro. Our findings may lead to the development of molecules capable of inhibiting IMPase activity at an alternative site than that of lithium. HubMed – depression