Exploring the physiologic mechanisms of mindfulness based therapies on the symptoms of breast and prostate cancer patients

Abstract

Breast and prostate cancers are among the two most common forms of cancer. In addition to the symptoms caused by the tumor itself, there are several sequelae associated with breast and prostate cancer that can be caused by the psychological impact of the diagnosis or from cancer treatment. Many of these symptoms can persist during the survivorship phase, even after the cancer has been treated. As such, given the large clinical population affected by these diseases, there is a strong need to identify and treat the unique symptom burden that these patients experience. While diagnosis and management of breast and prostate cancer-specific mortality have markedly developed over the years, there are still gaps in managing symptoms of cancer-related morbidity. Additionally, conventional pharmacological treatments for symptom management can come with their associated side-effects. Mindfulness-based interventions are a relatively new symptom management modality that have come as a part of a wave of cognitive-based therapies for simultaneous treatment of multiple cancer-related symptoms. Given the relative infancy of this treatment modality, much of the research has focused on its efficacy and validity as a treatment option. Even with exponential interest in this field, much of the underlying physiology of mindfulness is still unknown. This will be an examination of physiological mechanisms implicated in mindfulness-based interventions as they relate to breast and prostate cancer patients.