Psycho-oncology

Psycho-social care of patients with cancer is an integral part of modern oncology. Psychological care includes emotional support and care at the point of diagnosis, during cancer treatment, and after treatment is completed. There is the occasional need for comprehensive psychiatric assessment and medications to help with depression, anxiety, and suicidal thoughts. Family members may also need help. Our team has worked over the past decade on various aspects of psycho-oncology.

Cancer journeys and disruptions to care

Cancer journeys are never easy and, in a country like India, patients and their families literally travel long distances fraught with many difficulties. We studied access, affordability and disruptions to cancer care in our collaborative research project with Kings College London. This publication can be accessed here. 

Photographic exhibition regarding cancer journeys

Alongside this outward journey there is also an inwards psychological journey that was captured in the art of medicine project also called ‘Journeys’. In this project, we captured photographs of patients and healthcare workers. We conducted two exhibitions of these photographs, one in Kolkata in Jan 2021 and the second one in London in Feb 2021. The photographic project has been permanently hosted on the ecancermedicalsciences website.  Click here to go through the photobook.  Reflections about the exhibition are recorded here. 

Psychological issues and stigma faced by women with breast cancer

Many patients with cancer feel stigmatised and we reported on the stigma felt by women with breast cancer in India. A significant proportion of patients with breast cancer have emotional needs and access mental health care. We discuss the common issues and potential solutions in our paper published in 2023 (click here to access). 

Head and Neck Cancers and common psychiatric comorbidities 

Head and Neck cancers are one of the most common cancers in the Indian subcontinent. Patients diagnosed with oral cancers are often plagued by a range of psychiatric comorbidities. We had earlier reported on the common psychiatric comorbidities of oral cancer.  You may feel the pain from the short film produced by us based on a letter written by a patient to her  oncologist.

Psychological factors delaying presentation to oncologists in women with ovarian cancer 

Women with ovarian cancer often present quite late at diagnosis globally. We explored adult attachment patterns and social factors associated with delay in presentation to oncologist for women with ovarian cancer. A talk on this topic can be accessed here. 

Pediatric Psycho-oncology

While treating children with cancer, psychological care may be missed while the paediatric oncology teams are busy treating the biological disease. A broad overview of emotional issues in children with cancer was published in an editorial published by us in 2023. 

If you want to learn about paediatric psycho-oncology in further detail you can access the introductory book chapter on Paediatric Psycho-oncology in the IACAPAP textbook on child and adolescent mental health here.  (Soumitra S. Datta et al., n.d.)

Information needs of children with cancer and their parents were explored by one of the PhD scholars and her paper can be found here. 

Learning about paediatric oncology requires a framework for developing countries and we discussed this in our paper here.

Some children even after completion of cancer treatment may struggle to get back to usual life and we published a commentary on this. 

References 

  1. Chaudhuri, Trishna, Devi Nandakumar, Soumitra Shankar Datta, Zakir Husain, Reghu K. Sukumaran, Inder Sekhar Yadav, Sekhar Krishnan, and Samiran Panda. 2022. “Information-Sharing Experiences of Professionals Looking after Children with Cancer: A Qualitative Exploration from a Specialist Paediatric Oncology Unit in India.” Ecancermedicalscience 16 (May): 1399.
  2. Datta, Soumitra S., Laurie Cardona, Procheta Mahanta, Sana Younus, and Maria Teresa Lax-Pericall. n.d. “SUPPORTING CHILDREN WITH CANCER” .
  3. Datta, Soumitra Shankar. 2023. “Children with Cancer: Are We Healing the Body & Missing the Mind?” The Indian Journal of Medical Research 158 (4): 327–29.
  4. Datta, Soumitra Shankar, Lindsay Fraser, Matthew Burnell, Shazia Nasreen, Manisha Ghosh, Aparupa Ojha, Tania Saha, Asima Mukhopadhyay, Anne Lanceley, and Usha Menon. 2022. “Association of Adult Attachment with Delays in Accessing Specialist Care in Women with Ovarian Cancer.” Journal of Psychosocial Oncology 40 (4): 491–505.
  5. Datta, Soumitra Shankar, Soumita Ghose, Manisha Ghosh, Amruta Jain, Sumedha Mandal, Sayan Chakraborty, and Carlo Caduff. 2022. “Journeys: Understanding Access, Affordability and Disruptions to Cancer Care in India.” Ecancermedicalscience 16 (January): 1342.
  6. Datta, Soumitra Shankar, and Arnab Mukherjee. 2021. “‘My Cancer Is Cured, but I Do Not Feel Normal’: A Commentary on Neuropsychological Outcomes of Pediatric Acute Lymphocytic Leukemia in India.” Cancer Research, Statistics, and Treatment 4 (1): 119–20.
  7. Datta, Soumitra Shankar, Tania Saha, Aparupa Ojha, Anirban Das, Rhea Daruvala, Kesavapillai Sukumaran Reghu, and Rimpa Achari. 2019. “What Do You Need to Learn in Paediatric Psycho-Oncology?” Ecancermedicalscience 13 (March): 916.
  8. Mukherjee, Arnab, Chitralekha Bhowmick, Shreshta Chattopadhyay, Mohamed Abdul Kathar, Moitri Bhattacharyya, Shazia Nasreen, Prateek Jain, Pattatheyil Arun, and Soumitra Shankar Datta. 2022. “Preoperative Risk Factors Associated with Peri-Operative Psychiatric Diagnosis in Oral Cancer Patients.” Ecancermedicalscience 16 (May): 1401.
  9. Mukherjee, Arnab, Bidisha Samanta, Varuna Sharma, Aagon Krishna Shrestha, Shreshta Chattopadhyay, Chitralekha Bhowmick, Joydeep Ghosh, Sandip Ganguly, Sanjit Kumar Agrawal, and Soumitra Shankar Datta. 2024. “When Do Patients with Breast Cancer Seek Help from Psycho-Oncology Services? A 3-Year Retrospective Study from India.” Indian Journal of Medical and Paediatric Oncology: Official Journal of Indian Society of Medical & Paediatric Oncology 45 (03): 210–18.
  10. Tripathi, Lopamudra, Soumitra Shankar Datta, Sanjit Kumar Agrawal, Sanjoy Chatterjee, and Rosina Ahmed. 2017. “Stigma Perceived by Women Following Surgery for Breast Cancer.” Indian Journal of Medical and Paediatric Oncology: Official Journal of Indian Society of Medical & Paediatric Oncology 38 (2): 146–52.