A new study suggests that married couples are more likely to survive cancer than those who are not.
Researchers at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Brigham and Women’s Hospital carried a study on married people and found those who are married when diagnosed with cancer live longer than those who are not.
The principal reason behind the higher rate of survival was also because in married patients cancers were found to be diagnosed at an earlier stage when it is often more successfully treated.
Ayal Aizer, chief resident of the Harvard Radiation Oncology Programme and the paper’s first author, said, “Our data suggests that marriage can have a significant health impact for patients with cancer, and this was consistent among every cancer that we reviewed.”
“We suspect that social support from spouses is what’s driving the striking improvement in survival. Spouses often accompany patients on their visits and make sure they understand the recommendations and complete all their treatments,” Aizer said.
The researchers conducted a retrospective analysis of 734,889 people, who were diagnosed with cancer between 2004 and 2008, utilizing the National Cancer Institute’s Surveillance, Epidemiology and End Results Programme.
They focused on the 10 leading causes of cancer deaths in the United States: lung, colorectal, breast, pancreatic, prostate, liver/bile duct, non-Hodgkin lymphoma, head and neck, ovarian, and esophageal cancer.
The researchers found that in comparison with married patients, unmarried cancer patients, including those who were widowed, were 17 percent more likely to have metastatic cancer (cancer that spread beyond its original site) and were 53 percent less likely to receive the appropriate therapy.
The study was published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology.