Short Communication
Volume 1 Issue 2
I Chernikowa, S Khabekirova, S Savina and B Zaydiner*
September 07, 2022
Abstract
Cancer diseases affect approximately 10 million people only in Europe. As a result of the demographic development, their prevalence is expected to double during the next 10 years. Cancer accounted for nearly ten million deaths worldwide in 2020, or nearly 1 in 6 deaths. Meanwhile the number of survivors continues to grow, not just because of earlier detection and treatment, but also because of revolutionary new therapies. This changes the landscape from a terminal illness to more of a chronic illness. Such perspective on neoplasms has broadened the scope of care from treating the disease alone to managing cancer-related symptoms at different stages of the disease trajectory including mental disorders.
On psychiatric consultation of 546 cancer patients there was revealed that 54% of the referrals were diagnosed as having adjustment disorders, 15% delirium and 9% major depression [1]. The results showed elevated risk of comorbid common mental health disorders among persons who at the time of the study were undergoing treatment for cancer across all countries studied compared with either cancer survivors or cancer-free respondents.