ArticleCancer2009
Finding what is not there: unwarranted claims of an effect of psychosocial intervention on recurrence and survival.
Article in Cancer, 2009. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 10 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
10 citing papers in PubMed.
- Psychosocial interventions indicate prolonged survival in cancer patients in a systematic review, meta-analysis, and multiverse meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials.Communications psychology · 2026Article
- Stress and cancer: mechanisms, significance and future directions.Nature reviews. Cancer · 2021Review
- Schwann cells: a new player in the tumor microenvironment.Cancer immunology, immunotherapy : CII · 2017Review
- Targeted drugs and Psycho-oncological intervention for breast cancer patients.Journal of negative results in biomedicine · 2016Review
- Affective science perspectives on cancer control: strategically crafting a mutually beneficial research agenda.Perspectives on psychological science : a journal of the Association for Psychological Science · 2015Article
- Psychosocial care in cancer.Current psychiatry reports · 2012Review
- Host factors and cancer progression: biobehavioral signaling pathways and interventions.Journal of clinical oncology : official journal of the American Society of Clinical Oncology · 2010Review
- Positive psychology in cancer care: bad science, exaggerated claims, and unproven medicine.Annals of behavioral medicine : a publication of the Society of Behavioral Medicine · 2010Article
- Positive psychology in cancer care: a story line resistant to evidence.Annals of behavioral medicine : a publication of the Society of Behavioral Medicine · 2010Article
- Assessment of Psychological Distress and its Effect on Quality of Life and Social Functioning in Cancer Patients.Indian journal of palliative careArticle
Corrections and comments
- Commented on by
- Comment on
Authors and funding
4 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
In a recently published randomized trial, Andersen et al. claimed to observe a reduced risk of recurrence and improved survival among women with early stage breast cancer who were assigned to a psychological intervention versus an assessment-only group. Anderson et al. concluded that "psychological intervention, as delivered and studied here, can improve survival." The current commentary challenges that conclusion on methodological and statistical grounds, noting that the study by Andersen et al. was not designed to assess survival and used methods that capitalized on chance, making it highly unlikely that their claims could be replicated. No other study designed to assess whether psychosocial intervention provides a survival benefit for cancer patients has ever demonstrated such an effect; and, currently, there is no support for the hypothesis that survival benefits can be attributed to psychosocial intervention. The authors of this commentary argue that much needs to be learned at the more basic biobehavioral level about the impact of stress or psychological factors on tumor biology before even considering whether large clinical trials are warranted. In addition, making the claim that psychological interventions improve survival is not evidence-based, is potentially harmful, and detracts from the potential significant benefits of psychological interventions related to quality of life.
Indexed as
Identifiers
19834959What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.