A cancer diagnosis can have a substantial impact on a patient’s mental health and quality of life. The aim of this study was to investigate the prevalence of fatigue, emotional distress, and uncertainty and examine the predictive value they have on the quality of life of advanced cancer patients. A prospective, multicenter study was conducted between February 2020 and May 2021 of individuals diagnosed with an advanced, unresectable neoplasm prior to initiating systemic antineoplastic treatment. Participants completed questionnaires to quantify fatigue, emotional distress, disease uncertainty, and quality of life. A linear regression analysis was performed to study the predictive QoL variables. The study population comprised 508 patients, 53.7% of whom were male and had a mean age of 54.9 years. The most common cancers were digestive (40.6%), bronchopulmonary (29.1%), and breast (8.5%); the most frequent histology was adenocarcinoma (63%); and most were stage IV (79.7%). More than half (55.7%) suffered fatigue, and 47.7% exhibited emotional distress; both were more prevalent among women. Fatigue, emotional distress, and disease uncertainty all correlate with diminished quality of life. Similarly, ECOG performance status and the demographic variables of age, sex, and comorbidities impacted quality of life. This patient sample displayed a high prevalence of fatigue and emotional distress, together with illness uncertainty, which are clearly linked to waning quality of life. To decrease the experience of fatigue and improve mental health treatment in cancer patients, interventions based on a biopsychosocial model must be intensified.

Introduction: Most cancers occur in older individuals, who are more vulnerable due to functional impairment, multiple comorbidities, cognitive impairment, and lack of socio-familial support. These can undermine patients’ sense of dignity. This study seeks to compare dignity scores in older patients with advanced cancer on sociodemographic and clinical variables and analyze the predictive value of anxiety, depression, functional limitations, and social support on dignity scores. Methods: A prospective, multicenter, observational study conducted with participation of 15 hospitals in Spain from February 2020 to October 2021. Patients with newly-diagnosed, advanced cancer completed the dignity (PPDS), anxiety and depression (BSI), Social Support (Duke–UNC-11), and functional limitations (EORTC-C30) scales. Lineal regression analyses explored the effects of anxiety, depression, functional status, and social support on dignity, adjusting for sociodemographic and clinical variables. Results: A total of 180 subjects participated in this study. The results of the correlation analysis revealed that dignity correlated negatively with anxiety, depression, and sex, and positively with social support, functional status, and longer estimated survival. Thus, women, and more anxious and depressed individuals scored lower on the dignity scale, whereas patients with more social support, fewer functional limitations, and longer estimated survival scored higher. Conclusion: In conclusion, being female, having a lower educational level, lower estimated survival, depression, anxiety, less social support, and limited functionality are correlated with less dignity in the elderly with advanced cancer. It is a priority to manage both physical and psychological symptoms in patients with unresectable advanced cancer to mitigate psychological distress and increase their sense of dignity.

This study examines the mediating role of social support between anxious preoccupation and resilience in patients with cancer during COVID-19. NEOetic_SEOM is a prospective, multicenter study involving individuals with advanced, unresectable cancer who completed the following scales: Resilience (BCRS), Social Support (Duke-UNC-11), and anxious preoccupation subscale of the Mini-Mental Adjustment to Cancer (M-MAC) before starting antineoplastic treatment. Between March 2020 and July 2021, 507 patients (55% male; mean age, 65) were recruited. No differences in resilience were observed based on sociodemographic or clinical characteristics. Social support in people with advanced, unresectable cancer promotes both decreased anxious preoccupation and greater resilience.

Invasive lobular carcinoma (ILC) comprises ∼10%-15% of breast cancers and is characterized by loss of the cell-adhesion molecule E-cadherin (encoded by CDH1), discohesive growth, predominant estrogen receptor (ER) positivity, low-to-intermediate proliferation, and atypical metastatic spread to bone and gastrointestinal/peritoneal sites. Diagnostic assessment is often challenging owing to diffuse infiltration, frequently yielding non-measurable disease per response evaluation criteria in solid tumors (RECIST). Molecularly, ILC is enriched for phosphoinositide 3-kinase (PI3K) activation and harbors emerging vulnerabilities-such as ROS1 synthetic lethality in CDH1-deficient tumors and fibroblast growth factor receptor 1 (FGFR1)/bromodomain and extra-terminal (BET) dependencies-now under study. Because metastatic ILC remains underrepresented in trials, systemic therapy often mirrors invasive ductal carcinoma (IDC). This short communication synthesizes current evidence to distinguish shared from plausibly lobular-specific signals; highlights near-term opportunities-including antibody-drug conjugates (ADCs), oral selective ER degraders (SERDs), and selective use of immunotherapy in an immune-enriched subset with higher tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes (TILs) and PD-L1; and outlines trial-design adaptations-such as incorporating 18F-fluoroestradiol PET (FES-PET)-to improve representation and interpretability in metastatic ILC research.