External stressors may adversely impact cancer outcomes

MedPage Today (5/24, Bankhead) reports, “A measure of environmental stress had a significant association with mortality risk in patients with breast cancer, a large retrospective cohort study showed.” Investigators found that patients with a high “allosteric load” (a cumulative burden of chronic stress from life events) had almost a 50% higher all-cause mortality risk versus patients with a low “allosteric load.” MedPage Today adds, “Stratification of [allosteric load] scores showed that patients in the highest (fourth) quartile had almost an 80% greater risk than those in the lowest (first) quartile.” The findings were published in JAMA Network Open.

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Posted in In The News.