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Biomedical subjects

B H Fox

Publications and source records attributed to B H Fox.

25 records · Page 2Linked to original sources
PubMedDate not supplied

A hypothesis about Spiegel et al.'s 1989 paper on Psychosocial intervention and breast cancer survival.

In a randomized prospective study of 86 metastatic breast cancer patients by Spiegel et al. in 1989, the 50 who took part in a group psychosocial intervention survived on average 18 months longer than the 36 controls who did not. Because the control survival curve looked unusually steep, lacking an expected right-skewed tail, both curves were compared with that of a population from the same region having metastatic breast cancer. When transformed to life-table format, the curves of the control sample and the regional population, neither group having had an intervention, were almost identical for a year, and differed strikingly after 20 months. This led to the hypothesis that the 12 control patients surviving for more than 20 months were an extremely aberrant sample, being subject to the strong biasing influence of possible confounders, of which a considerable number are known, but not including those accounted for in the study. Corollaries to the hypothesis are that the intervention had no effect; that the intervention curve was in fact equivalent to a control curve with mild sampling departure from that of the regional population; and that, therefore, the repetition of the study now under way would not yield confirmation of the 1989 study, but rather, would support the hypothesis and the first two corollaries.

Breast Neoplasms↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Short-term immunological effects of induced emotion.

Twenty healthy volunteers (half male) recalled and relived maximally disturbing (NEG) and maximally pleasurable (POS) emotional experiences. Forty minutes of silence, then neutral conversation, preceded and followed 40 minutes of emotion elicitation (NEG and POS randomly rotated). They were under video, cardiovascular, and immunological monitoring. Subjects reported appropriate emotions and showed significant cardiovascular activation during the NEG condition. Speech alone had an independent cardiovascular activating effect. Emotion, particularly NEG, led to further activation. NEG emotion promoted significant declines in mitogenic lymphocyte reactivity, followed by return to pre-emotion levels. A similar though less extreme decline was seen in the POS condition. There was a weak trend for elevated natural killer cell activity under the NEG condition, possibly due in part to changed trafficking patterns. Correlational findings confirmed these group effects. The decline in mitogenic reactivity during POS emotion appeared to be due to subtle degrees of tension and excitement triggered by the experimental experience regardless of the exact emotions recalled. Results suggest that immunologic processes are sensitive to influence by arousal of emotion.

Adaptation, Psychological↗