Treating cancer-related fatigue may reduce anxiety and depression

Improvements in cancer-related fatigue are significantly associated with reductions in anxiety and depression in anemic patients with lung cancer, according to a report in the July 1st issue of Cancer.

In a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled study of darbepoetin alfa, Dr. N. Simon Tchekmedyian, of Pacific Shores Medical Group, Long Beach, California, and colleagues evaluated changes in depression and anxiety levels and fatigue in lung cancer patients with anemia. Two hundred and fifty subjects were included in the study, which was sponsored by Amgen, Inc., Thousand Oaks, California.The patients completed the Brief Symptom Inventory (BSI) Depression and Anxiety subscales and the Functional Assessment of Cancer Therapy (FACT) Fatigue subscale. The researchers used Pearson correlation coefficients to compare changes in BSI scores with changes in FACT Fatigue scores.At baseline, high levels of anxiety and depression were reported by 25% and 35% of patients, respectively. The mean BSI anxiety subscale score was 59.0 and the mean BSI depression subscale score was 61.0. The mean FACT Fatigue subscale score was 30.2, below the general US population mean of 43.6.Changes in FACT Fatigue subscale scores correlated with changes in anxiety and depression scores, “indicating a significant association between improvements in fatigue…and improvement in psychologic distress,” Dr. Tchekmedyian and colleagues report.After multiple regression analysis, the change in the FACT Fatigue score was the only significant explanatory variable of change in the BSI Anxiety and Depression subscale scores. For every unit improvement in the FACT Fatigue subscale score, the team observed a corresponding improvement of 0.7 points and 0.8 points in anxiety and depression levels, respectively.Based on these findings, the investigators suggest that treating fatigue in patients with cancer-related anemia may also reduce levels of anxiety and depression.(Source: Cancer 2003;98:198-203: Reuters Health: July 9, 2003: Oncolink)