PHYSICAL indicators, not psychological ones, best predict how long a patient with terminal cancer is likely to survive.
How a patient’s psychological state affects their life expectancy has been the subject of much debate in medical circles. Cancer patients and their families often firmly believe that their frame of mind is key to survival. But the evidence for this has been murky.
Antonio Vigano at the McGill University Health Centre in Montreal and his colleagues studied over a thousand people who had recently been diagnosed with incurable cancer of the lung, breast, digestive tract and genito-urinary system. A person with…
