The Emotional Impact Of Pancreatic Cancer

Pancreatic Cancer takes it out of you physically, but what about the emotional impact of not only a diagnosis but also the treatment?

Anna Taylor is a doctor who is looking into depression and anxiety in pancreatic cancer patients due to go to surgery.

You can contact anna via email here annaktaylor@doctors.org.uk and she can be found on twitter as @Anna_K_Taylor

These are the links to the published papers:

Exploring the psychological/emotional impact of recovery after surgery, summarises the patient 'journey': https://bmjopen.bmj.com/content/11/12/e050016.abstract

Summarising the role of primary care and the GP in caring for patients after surgery, and what support networks patients use and value: https://bjgpopen.org/content/6/2/BJGPO.2021.0154

This paper includes a quote from the loved one of a patient and how the diagnosis and treatment impacted them: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/hex.13263

Anna also mentioned a review about antidepressants in cancer. This is the link to that paper - https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6494588/

She adds "In summary it says that although antidepressants are fairly safe medications for people who are medically ill (including cancer) the available evidence for them actually improving depression in cancer is not very good. It doesn't mean people can't have antidepressants and prescribing is all assessed on an individual basis anyway."

As always if you have any questions please speak to your doctor.

You can find out more about Purple Rainbow here https://purplerainbow.co.uk/

Music Credit Purple Planet Studios

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