CORRESPONDENCE

RESPONSE: Re: Personality and the Risk of Cancer

Yoshitaka Tsubono, Naoki Nakaya, Ichiro Tsuji

Affiliation of authors: Division of Epidemiology, Department of Public Health and Forensic Medicine, Tohoku University Graduate School of Medicine, Sendai, Japan.

Correspondence to: Yoshitaka Tsubono, MD, Division of Epidemiology, Department of Public Health and Forensic Medicine, Tohoku University Graduate School of Medicine, Sendai 980-8575, Japan (e-mail: ytsubono{at}metamedica.com).

Although the hypothesis proposed by Drs. Murr and Fuchs is interesting and potentially important, caution is required in relating it directly to our observation that neuroticism is associated with higher prevalence of cancer among the general population (1). First, neuroticism is a personality trait that cannot be equated with depressive symptoms or quality of life. Second, our finding is not generalizable to the association between neuroticism (or other psychological variables) and poorer prognosis among cancer patients. To examine the association between personality and survival from cancer, we are currently conducting an analysis in a subgroup of the total cohort with prevalent or incident cancers.

REFERENCE

1 Nakaya N, Tsubono Y, Hosokawa T, Nishino Y, Ohkubo T, Hozawa A, et al. Personality and the risk of cancer. J Natl Cancer Inst 2003;95:799-805.[Abstract/Free Full Text]



             
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