Research In Correlation Of Emotional Factors And Breast Cancer Morbidity

Background:Breast cancer is one of the most common malignant tumor of women,poses a serious threat to the physical and mental health in women.Breast cancer etiology and the pathogenesis still were not clear.Explaining the causes of breast cancer,the emphasis of modern medicine is on fertility,lactation history,family history,hormone stimulation,diet and so on.The traditional Chinese medicine reveals that emotional injury and organs dysfunction are closely related to the occurrence of breast cancer.Objective:This research uses Case-control to analysis the investigation result and to assess the role of emotional factors in the development of breast cancer from the perspective of traditional Chinese medicine.Methods:Two hundred and two patients with breast cancer and two hundred and two patients with benign breast diseases participated in the retrospective study.All patients were diagnosed and treated in Breast department of Guangdong Provincial TCM Hospital from September 2007 to September 2008.Breast cancer group and control group are followed in accordance with(1) age is similar (a difference of no more than 3 years old);(2) the same career(and for mental or physical);(3) a considerable level of education;(4) similar habits;(5) marital condition is same;Two groups of patients filled the same traditional Chinese medicine etiology information collection table,Life Events Scale(LES) and Trait Coping Style Questionnaire(TCSQ).To statistics and analysis the depression,thought,sadness and other emotional factors that caused by the negative life events the two groups of patients experienced in the nearly 5 years,the extent of the impact on patients and the coping style.The statistical processing used the SPSS 11.0 analysis software package to test the significance in measurement data with paired t-test,count data with chi-square test and level data with rank sum test.Results:(1) There was no significant difference between the two groups in the basic information and prompted that there are comparability.(t=1.04 P＞0.05)(2) 165 patients with breast cancer experienced 493 different life events in the nearly 5 years,an average of 2.44±1.81.While 96 patients experienced 251 different life events in the control group,an average of 1.24±1.01.There are obvious differences between the two groups(t=2.95 P＜0.01).(3)The results showed that the average score of life events units(LEU) of the breast cancer group was 80.60±52.53 points,while that of the control group was 45.21±36.97 points,the former was significantly higher than the latter (t=1.96 P＜0.05).(4) The degree of LEU were ranked to no(0 point),mild(1-50 points),moderate(51-100 points) and severe grade(more than 101 points).The results show that the intensity distribution of the negative life events are different between the two groups(P＜0.05).The number of the breast cancer patients encountered moderate and severe life events is more than that of the control group obviously,while the number of the control group patients experienced no negative life events significantly is more than that of the breast cancer group.(5)In the content of the negative life events the results showed that the number of the negative life events in the marriage and family issues of the breast cancer group is clearly more than that of the control group(P＜0.05).(6)In coping style,breast cancer group scored significantly higher to deal with the negative life events in a negative way(P＜0.05).Conclusion:(1) The frequency of experienced negative life events the breast cancer patients before being diagnosed at 5 years is higher than that of the control group obviously.It prompts that depression,thought,sadness and other emotional factors are related to the occurrence of breast cancer;(2) The degree of experienced negative life events in breast cancer patients is greater in general;the negative life events mostly are moderate and severe;(3) Many breast cancer patients choose to use the negative coping style when they encountered the negative life events.The negative coping style is an unfavorable factor to breast cancer;(4) Depression,thought,sadness and other emotional factors caused by negative life events play an important role in the women which eventually led to the occurrence of breast cancer.