title: Post-traumatic stress disorder associated with suspected lung cancer and bereavement: 4-year follow-up and review of the literature.
abstract: We report here a patient who developed post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) after being given a diagnosis of suspected lung cancer. The symptoms of PTSD continued even after it had been confirmed that the lesion was benign after all. A 73-year-old man was referred to our psychiatric outpatient clinic for depressed mood, appetite loss and difficulty in sleeping. On examination the patient explained that he had become preoccupied with intrusive thoughts and memories since his diagnosis of suspected lung cancer and that although he had been told the lesion was not malignant, he had distressing memories of that period and was experiencing severe psychological distress. The patient also explained that he had experienced the death of a close friend through lung cancer and he had a deep fear of developing lung cancer himself. In this patient, the psychological distress evoked by the diagnosis of suspected cancer was severe enough to induce the symptoms of PTSD even though the tumor was benign. From the clinical point of view, it could provide useful information if liaison psychiatrists were to ask patients about any experience of losing significant others to the same disease and this might be helpful in gaining an understanding of the disease process.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychiatry, Yokohama City University School of Medicine, 3-9 Fukuura, Kanazawa-ku, Yokohama 236-0004, Japan. h-onishi@jg7.so-net.ne.jp
authors.forename: Hideki
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Onishi
authors.forename: Masanari
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Onose
authors.forename: Tomoki
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Yamada
authors.forename: Yasuhiro
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Mizuno
authors.forename: Mizuho
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Ito
authors.forename: Hiroko
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Sato
authors.forename: Hironobu
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Sato
authors.forename: Kenji
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Kosaka
mesh_terms: D000368:Aged; D001601:Bereavement; D005239:Fear; D006801:Humans; D007398:Interpersonal Relations; D008175:Lung Neoplasms / Q000523:psychology*; D008297:Male; D013313:Stress Disorders, Post-Traumatic / Q000209:etiology* / Q000523:psychology*