ABSTRACT
Alexithymia and circulating lymphocyte subsets were studied in 62 women [36 healthy women and 26 women affected by cervical intraepithelial neoplasia (CIN I, II, III) who were not aware of their status] in order to assess a possible relationship between alexithymia, CIN and immunological lymphocytic functions. Alexithymia was estimated by the 20-item Schalling-Sifneos Personality Scale and then correlated with peripheral blood lymphocyte subsets. The results of our study report an association between alexithymia and CIN. Alexithymic women show lower rates of almost all lymphocytic subsets compared to nonalexithymic ones. The difference was also found between alexithymic women affected by CIN and alexithymic women with an unsuspicious Pap smear. On the whole, these preliminary results seem to confirm data reported by other authors who hypothesized that a certain personality trait characterized by emotional inhibition is related to a greater cancer vulnerability. Such relationships might be mediated by certain lymphocytic functions as the result of the alexithymic status. Results reported here need more extensive surveys, in order to control potentially confounding factors related to the personality assessment of the subjects in this study.
Subject(s)
Affective Symptoms/immunology , Lymphocyte Subsets/immunology , Uterine Cervical Dysplasia/psychology , Uterine Cervical Neoplasms/psychology , Adult , Affective Symptoms/psychology , Aged , Disease Susceptibility/immunology , Disease Susceptibility/psychology , Female , Humans , Immune Tolerance/immunology , Leukocyte Count , Middle Aged , Papanicolaou Test , Psychoneuroimmunology , Risk Factors , Uterine Cervical Neoplasms/immunology , Vaginal Smears , Uterine Cervical Dysplasia/immunologyABSTRACT
The Schalling Sifneos Personality Scale (SSPS) and the Middlesex Hospital Questionnaire (MHQ) have been used in 381 women just before mammography at the Breast Center of the Radiology Institute, University of Bari (Italy). Of the 200 women who accepted to complete the questionnaires 13 were found positive for cancer. Student's t test comparison of the mean SSPS and MHQ scores of the positive for cancer with the negative showed that women with breast cancer have more pronounced alexithymic but not neurotic traits. Our findings suggest that patients with cancer may have something in common with those suffering from so-called psychosomatic pathologies who have a constrained imagination and fantasy and difficulty in verbalizing their emotions. Thus, this study indicates a relationship between alexithymia and cancer.
