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Post-traumatic stress disorder is commoner after cancer than in matched controls, with a pooled odds ratio of 1.66 across 11 studies, and the meta-analysis authors say some of that may come from publication bias. How much is reported depends on whether a clinician interviewed the person, and on whether the paper's own title mentions post-traumatic stress.
A diversified literature search identified 120 samples from 110 sources reporting a proportion of cancer survivors with post-traumatic stress disorder. Of those, 11 studies containing 12 samples compared survivors with matched controls, and the random-effects pooled odds ratio was 1.66 (95 per cent confidence interval 1.09 to 2.53). The authors added, in the abstract, that "some of this apparent increase may have arisen from publication bias". The factors that influenced how high a reported proportion was are the most useful part of the paper: measurement type, meaning clinical interview against self-report instrument; type of cancer; type of treatment; geographic region; prior trauma; age; time since diagnosis; and whether the term "posttraumatic stress" appeared in the title or abstract. That last one is not a feature of patients. It is a feature of studies.
The qualitative review in a psychiatry journal reaches the same place from the clinical side. Cancer-related post-traumatic stress disorder "has been documented in a minority of patients with cancer and their family members, is positively associated with other indices of distress and reduced quality of life, and has several correlates and risk factors (eg, prior trauma history, pre-existing psychiatric conditions, poor social support)". The existing literature used the fourth-edition diagnostic criteria, and the authors note that the revised fifth-edition criteria "have important implications for the assessment of cancer-related distress". They are explicit about the gap: "The literature on treatment of cancer-related PTSD is sparse." Their recommendations are that assessment should include careful evaluation of trauma and psychiatric history from before the cancer, that diagnostic interviewing should consider concurrent conditions such as adjustment disorder, and that "Treatment of cancer-related PTSD should be approached with caution and be informed by existing evidence-based approaches for traumatic stress."
Why the diagnostic argument matters to a reader rather than only to a committee. Classical post-traumatic stress disorder is organised around a discrete event in the past that intrudes into the present. Cancer does not fit that shape cleanly: the threat is often ongoing, the intrusive images may be of a future rather than a past, and the avoidance that defines the disorder, avoiding reminders, can mean avoiding the hospital that is keeping you alive. The review's own section on differential diagnosis exists for that reason. A person who has flashbacks of an intensive care unit, a botched cannulation, a scan room or the moment they were told, who avoids the places and conversations that bring it back, and whose sleep and concentration have not recovered, is describing something real and treatable whatever it is eventually called.
What OnCo could not establish. There is no randomised trial of a trauma-focused therapy delivered specifically to people with cancer-related post-traumatic stress that this round could find, which is why the grade on this record is insufficient rather than moderate. The evidence-based treatments for post-traumatic stress disorder in general, trauma-focused cognitive behavioural therapy and eye movement desensitisation and reprocessing, have not been tested in this population at a scale that would support a recommendation, and the reviewers' word for applying them here is "caution" rather than a prohibition. That is a gap in the research, not a reason for a reader to be turned away: the route in is the general mental health service, through the general practitioner or the cancer team.
The diagnostic criteria for post-traumatic stress disorder were built around a threat that has ended. A cancer diagnosis creates intrusive memory and avoidance with the same mechanics, but the feared event is partly in the future and the reminders are the appointments that constitute care, so avoidance is both a symptom and a direct risk to treatment. That mismatch is why prevalence estimates swing with the instrument and why the differential diagnosis against adjustment disorder matters more here than in other settings.
Query for this technology: (TITLE:"Post-traumatic stress after cancer: what is measured, and how much of it is measurement" OR ABSTRACT:"Post-traumatic stress after cancer: what is measured, and how much of it is measurement") AND (cancer OR tumor OR tumour OR oncology OR carcinoma OR lymphoma OR leukemia OR leukaemia OR myeloma OR sarcoma OR melanoma OR glioma). Results are unfiltered search hits about Post-traumatic stress after cancer: what is measured, and how much of it is measurement, not a curated reading list.
Shares Depression during and after cancer: the interview-based prevalence, and the care model that works, Anxiety after cancer, in survivors and in their partners, Getting psychological help after cancer: the stepped-care model, and what is actually commissioned, Psycho-oncology and distress screening and the tags rejuvenation, survivorship, psychosocial.
Shares Anxiety after cancer, in survivors and in their partners, Psycho-oncology and distress screening, Quality of life, Late effects and survivorship toxicity and the tags rejuvenation, survivorship, psychosocial.
Shares Risk-stratified lifelong care for tens of millions of survivors, automated and shared with primary care, Getting psychological help after cancer: the stepped-care model, and what is actually commissioned, Psycho-oncology and distress screening, Quality of life and the tags rejuvenation, survivorship, psychosocial.
Shares Post-traumatic growth: what people report, and what the measurement actually captures, Psycho-oncology and distress screening, Quality of life, Late effects and survivorship toxicity and the tags rejuvenation, survivorship, psychosocial.
Shares Risk-stratified lifelong care for tens of millions of survivors, automated and shared with primary care, Anxiety after cancer, in survivors and in their partners, Psycho-oncology and distress screening, Quality of life and the tags rejuvenation, survivorship, psychosocial.
Shares Getting psychological help after cancer: the stepped-care model, and what is actually commissioned, Psycho-oncology and distress screening, Quality of life, Late effects and survivorship toxicity and the tags rejuvenation, survivorship, psychosocial.
Shares Getting psychological help after cancer: the stepped-care model, and what is actually commissioned, Psycho-oncology and distress screening, Quality of life, Late effects and survivorship toxicity and the tags rejuvenation, survivorship, psychosocial.
Shares Depression during and after cancer: the interview-based prevalence, and the care model that works, Psycho-oncology and distress screening, Quality of life, Survivorship and late effects are neglected and the tags rejuvenation, survivorship, psychosocial.