Yuan Yang|Josie Cameron|Gerry Humphris
The relationship between cancer patient's fear of recurrence and radiotherapy: a systematic review and meta-analysis
University of St Andrews|Western General Hospital|University of St Andrews|Western General Hospital
review aims provide overview current knowledge available nature extent relationship externalbeam radiotherapy rt fear cancer recurrence forpubmed medline embase databases searched identify relevant studies systematic review procedures followed including quality assessment metaanalysis suitable studies conductedtwentyfive eligible studies included systematic review 15 included metaanalysis metaanalysis available data confirmed weak relationship rt 15 studies 9567 patients overall r 0053 95 confidence interval 00210085 p 001 subgroup analysis based cancer site breast cancer versus types cancer revealed correlation rt statistically significant cancer group p 001 nonsignificant breast cancer group p 538while metaanalysis reports statistically significant association cancer patients receipt rt results interpreted caution owing significant variability studies longitudinal studies conducted address trajectory rt greater detail