Psychological distress as a putative host-state determinant of cancer immunotherapy response
Agnieszka Bronisz, Klaudia Kiel, Jakub Godlewski · 2026
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Description
Bronisz and co-authors examine whether a patient's psychological state shapes how well cancer immunotherapy works. Their 2026 review starts from an imbalance: tumour-based biomarkers only partly explain who benefits durably from immunotherapy, while host immune state receives less attention. Distress is the candidate modifier, tied in patients to altered stress hormones, inflammation, weaker natural killer cell function, and general immune dysregulation.
Preclinical work shows stress signalling can disable T cells, derail their metabolism, and suppress antigen presentation. Clinical studies, mostly observational, link emotional distress before treatment to poorer outcomes across several cancers, including lung, gastroesophageal, gastric, and recurrent brain tumours. The authors are careful with causality: current evidence casts distress as possibly modifying, or merely tracking, the host state, not a proven cause. They propose a psycho-neuro-immune framework and identify what stronger studies must show.
Catalog record
| CREATOR | Agnieszka Bronisz, Klaudia Kiel, Jakub Godlewski |
|---|---|
| YEAR | 2026 |
| COLLECTION | PAPERS |
| FORMAT | TXT |
| FILE SIZE | 82 KB |
| LICENSE | https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0 |
| RIGHTS | CC BY |
| SOURCE | Europe PMC |