This Article  • Full text  • PDF  • Send to a friend  • Save in My Folder  • Save to citation manager  • Permissions  Citing Articles  • Contact me when this article is cited  Related Content  • Similar articles in JAMA  Social Bookmarking   What's this?

Rebecca Voelker

JAMA. 1998;279:574.

	Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 139 words of the full text and any section headings.

The stress of being diagnosed with breast cancer can weaken the immune system in some women, according to researchers at Ohio State University in Columbus.

In a study of 116 women who underwent surgery for stage II or stage III breast cancer, the researchers divided participants into a low-stress group and a high-stress group. They found that women in the high-stress group experienced an increased breakdown of natural killer (NK) cells and had a lower response to interferon gamma, which enhances NK cell activity. Women in the high-stress group also had lower T-lymphocyte responses to monoclonal antibodies. The findings were reported January 7 in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute.

Barbara Andersen, PhD, lead investigator of the study, said she hopes to report additional findings next year on effects of hormonal changes on immune function.

CiteULike    Connotea    Del.icio.us    Digg    Reddit    Technorati    Twitter     What's this?