SynthesisJournal of cancer research and clinical oncology2014
Effects of psycho-behavioral interventions on immune functioning in cancer patients: a systematic review.
Synthesis in Journal of cancer research and clinical oncology, 2014. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 14 papers, 3 of them syntheses that pooled it.
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
14 citing papers in PubMed, 3 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 25 citations in OpenAlex.
- Effects of psychosocial interventions on cancer-related fatigue in patients with colorectal cancer: a systematic review and meta-analysis of randomised controlled trials.Supportive care in cancer : official journal of the Multinational Association of Supportive Care in Cancer · 2026Pooled it
- Psychosocial interventions reduce cortisol in breast cancer patients: systematic review and meta-analysis.Frontiers in psychology · 2023Pooled it
- Psychological intervention and its immune effect in cancer patients: A meta-analysis.Medicine · 2019Pooled it
- Effect of Integrated Psychobehavioral Care on Emotional-Behavioral Responses, Cognitive Changes in Outpatients with Schizophrenia Followed Up: Based on a Prospective Randomized Controlled Study.Computational and mathematical methods in medicine · 2022Trial
- Potential benefits of local radiotherapy in addition to adjuvant chemotherapy in female patients with triple-negative breast cancer in the absence of distant metastases: a SEER database analysis.Translational cancer research · 2026Article
- Long-term trends in the incidence of male breast cancer and nomogram for predicting survival in male breast cancer patients: a population-based epidemiologic study.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- The Impact of Exercise on Interleukin-6 to Counteract Immunosenescence: Methodological Quality and Overview of Systematic Reviews.Healthcare (Basel, Switzerland) · 2024Review
- Clonal evolution characteristics and reduced dimension prognostic model for non-metastatic metachronous bilateral breast cancer.Frontiers in oncology · 2022Article
- Barriers to Psychosocial Services Use For Latina Versus Non-Latina White Breast Cancer Survivors.American journal of psychotherapy · 2021Article
- Effects of marital status on breast cancer survival by age, race, and hormone receptor status: A population-based Study.Cancer medicine · 2019Article
- Effects of marital status on survival of hepatocellular carcinoma by race/ethnicity and gender.Cancer management and research · 2018Article
- The influence of marital status on the stage at diagnosis, treatment, and survival of adult patients with gastric cancer: a population-based study.Oncotarget · 2017Article
- Network analysis reveals a stress-affected common gene module among seven stress-related diseases/systems which provides potential targets for mechanism research.Scientific reports · 2015Article
- The Effect of Complementary and Alternative Medicines on Quality of Life in Patients with Breast Cancer: A Systematic Review.Indian journal of palliative careReview
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
8 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
purposeThis study aimed at summarizing evidence about effects of psycho-behavioral interventions (PBIs) on immune responses among cancer patients and analyzing quality of published studies so as to inform future researches.
methodsLiterature retrieval utilized both highly inclusive algorithms searching randomized controlled studies published in English and Chinese and manual searching of eligible studies from references of relevant review papers. Two researchers examined the articles selected separately and extracted the information using a pre-designed form for soliciting data about the trials (e.g., sample size, disease status, intervention, immune responses) and quality ratings of the studies. Both narrative descriptions and meta-analysis (via Review manager 5) were used synthesizing the effects of PBIs on immune responses among cancer patients and state of art of the researches in this area.
resultsSeventy-six RCTs met inclusion criteria. PBIs implemented were divided into three major categories including psychological state adjustment, physical activity and dietary modification. Immune indicators measured included CD4+ cells, CD8+ cells, CD4/CDC8+ ratio, CD3+ cells, NK cell activity, etc. Effects of PBIs on immune responses documented in individual papers were mixed and pooled analysis of CD4+ cells, CD4+/CD8+ ratio, CD3+ cells, NKCA, IgG, IgM and IL-2 showed modest effects. However, there were huge discrepancies in intervention effects between studies published in English and Chinese and the results should be interpreted with caution. Besides, most studies suffer from some quality flaws concerning blinding, randomization procedures, compliance, attrition and intention-to-treat analyses, etc.
conclusionsAlthough there are considerable evidences of PBI effects on some immune indicators, the effect sizes are modest and it is still premature to conclude whether PBIs have effects on immune functions among cancer patients. There is a clear need for much more rigorous efforts in this area and future researches should pay particular attention to intervention dose and focus, sample size and comparable immune measures.
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What 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.