Social interaction may aid cancer patients' response to treatment

July 19 (UPI) -- Research by the National Human Genome Research Institute showed social interaction between cancer patients may improve their response to treatment.

The study, by researchers at the NHGRI, part of the National Institutes of Health, and the University of Oxford, found that how cancer patients responded to chemotherapy was affected by their social interaction with other patients during treatment.

"People model behavior based on what's around them," Jeff Lienert, lead author in NHGRI's Social and Behavioral Research Branch and a National Institutes of Health Oxford-Cambridge Scholars Program fellow, said in a press release.

"For example, you will often eat more when you're dining with friends, even if you can't see what they're eating. When you're bicycling, you will often perform better when you're cycling with others, regardless of their performance."

Researchers analyzed data from electronic medical records from 2000 to 2009 from two major hospitals in the United Kingdom's National Health Service.

They found that cancer patients were more likely to survive for five years or more after chemotherapy if they interacted with other patients who survived five years or more during chemotherapy.

"We had information on when patients checked in and out of the chemotherapy ward, a small intimate space where people could see and interact for a long period of time," Lienert said. "We used 'time spent getting chemotherapy in a room with others' as a proxy for social connection."

The study, published July 12 in Network Science, found that when patients interacted with other patients during chemotherapy who then died less than five years following treatment, they had a 72 percent chance of dying within five years following their chemo.

Patients had a 68 percent chance of dying within five years if they were around other patients who survived five years or longer.

"A two percent difference in survival -- between being isolated during treatment and being with other patients -- might not sound like a lot, but it's pretty substantial," Lienert said. "If you saw 5,000 patients in nine years, that 2 percent improvement would affect 100 people."