Taxanes and psychological health/immune system

I saw this article on the YSC site. This is a note to self. You can read if for some mysterious reason my personality/mood changes in 2 years.

1) Taxanes May Increase Risk for Significant Psychologic Symptoms up to 2 years post treatment.

The researchers observed high rates of probable clinical depression among patients who received taxane therapy.Currently, the underlying reasons for these effects remain largely speculative, according to lead author Lisa Thornton, PhD, a post-doctoral fellow involved in the Stress and Immunity Cancer Project at Ohio State University, in Columbus. "Patients who receive taxanes do tend to have more of some types of symptoms, such as peripheral neuropathy, than patients on other chemotherapy medications, and those symptoms can be upsetting," she told Medscape Oncology."However, our data suggest that such symptoms cannot account for the delays in emotional recovery we saw with this group of patients," she added. "Patients were distressed beyond what would be expected based on their treatment side effects."

2) Another possibility is an underlying immunologic mechanism; cancer treatments, including chemotherapies, can trigger inflammatory reactions. Inflammation is known to produce depression-like symptoms, including low mood, fatigue, irritability, and sleeplessness. "It may be that taxanes trigger this response more strongly and for a longer period of time than other drugs do," said Dr. Thornton. "Other data from our lab suggest that taxanes do stimulate the immune system, so it's possible we may be seeing the after effects of that."

Cancer. 2008;113:638-647. Abstract