Publications by authors named "Goerling U"

Objective: Individuals with low socioeconomic status (SES) exhibit higher rates of mental disorders; however, data in oncological populations are insufficient. This study investigated the course of DSM-5 mental disorders in cancer patients, stratified by SES, over a period of 1.5 years following initial cancer diagnosis.

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Objective: Cancer places a psychological burden on both patients and their relatives. Perceived social support influences the extent of psychological distress. Our aim was to investigate associations between positive support, detrimental interactions, depression and anxiety in patient-relative dyads in the initial period after diagnosis.

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Background: The purpose of this study was to provide the 4-week prevalence estimates of mental disorders in newly diagnosed cancer patients in relation to socioeconomic status (SES).

Patients And Methods: We enrolled newly diagnosed patients with a confirmed solid tumor within 2 months of diagnosis. We calculated patients' SES on the basis of their educational level, professional qualification, income and occupational status.

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  • * A study analyzed 1,498 hospitalized cancer patients from Germany, assessing their Physical and Mental Component Scores (PCS and MCS) over 12 months, revealing improvements, especially in gynecological cancer patients.
  • * Differences in HRQoL scores were found across cancer types, with skin cancer patients faring best and lung cancer patients the worst, highlighting the importance of these outcomes for enhancing health literacy.
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Purpose: Patients with cancer suffer from a wide range of psychological distress. Nevertheless, in the literature low utilization rates of psychooncological services are reported. Various factors may influence the utilization of professional support during inpatient care.

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  • RRSO (risk-reducing salpingo-oophorectomy) is recommended for women with BRCA mutations due to its potential to lower cancer risk, but it may lead to early menopause and associated symptoms.
  • The study evaluated the impact of RRSO and preoperative menopausal status on menopausal symptoms, sexual functioning, and quality of life in BRCA carriers, finding that RRSO did not significantly affect quality of life.
  • Women undergoing RRSO who were premenopausal reported more sexual complaints post-surgery, suggesting that preoperative counseling should address potential impacts on sexual functioning specifically for premenopausal women.
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The S3-guideline on endometrial cancer, first published in April 2018, was reviewed in its entirety between April 2020 and January 2022 and updated. The review was carried out at the request of German Cancer Aid as part of the Oncology Guidelines Program and the lead coordinators were the German Society for Gynecology and Obstetrics (DGGG), the Gynecology Oncology Working Group (AGO) of the German Cancer Society (DKG) and the German Cancer Aid (DKH). The guideline update was based on a systematic search and assessment of the literature published between 2016 and 2020.

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  • - The S3-guideline for endometrial cancer, initially released in April 2018, underwent a comprehensive review and update from April 2020 to January 2022, as requested by German Cancer Aid and coordinated by prominent gynecological and oncology organizations in Germany.
  • - The update focused on integrating new evidence and refining recommendations to enhance treatment approaches, emphasizing personalized therapies to minimize unnecessary radical surgeries and non-beneficial adjuvant treatments for low-risk patients.
  • - The revised guideline aims to optimize care for high-risk patients by clarifying the roles of radical surgery and additional treatments, ultimately improving survival rates and quality of life, while serving as a foundation for certified gynecological cancer centers.
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Background: Patient navigation programmes were introduced in the United States and recently gained interest in Germany, where the health care system is fragmented. Navigation programmes aim to decrease barriers to care for patients with age-associated diseases and complex care paths. Here we describe a feasibility study to evaluate a patient-oriented navigation model that was developed in a first project phase by integrating data about barriers to care, vulnerable patient populations and existing support services.

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  • More than 10% of cancer patients have kids who depend on them, and researchers wanted to know if this causes more stress and problems.
  • In a study, they compared 161 cancer patients with kids to 161 without kids, using questionnaires to measure their stress levels and need for support.
  • Results showed that parents with cancer felt much more stress and had different problems, but they didn’t get more help than those without kids, indicating gaps in support for these families.
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Background: Despite remarkable progress, cancer remains a life-threatening disease for millions of people worldwide, also resulting in significant psychosocial limitations. High-quality, comprehensive cancer care requires patient and family involvement and the provision of needs-based, targeted psychosocial services. Although progress has been made in understanding the occurrence of mental comorbidity and psychosocial distress in cancer patients, comparatively little is known about the course of psychological comorbidity and psychosocial distress in early survivorship among patients and their families.

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Purpose: Anxiety is an accompanying symptom in cancer patients that can have a negative impact on patients. The aim of the present analyses is to determine the prevalence of anxiety, taking into account sociodemographic and medical variables, and to determine the odds ratio for the occurrence of anxiety in cancer patients compared to general population.

Methods: In this secondary analyses, we included 4,020 adult cancer patients during and after treatment from a multi-center epidemiological study from 5 regions in Germany in different treatment settings and a comparison group consisting of 10,000 people from the general population in Germany.

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Objective: We prospectively addressed whether patient characteristics, oncological outcomes, or metastatic risk impacted depression and anxiety in patients undergoing curative proton treatment for uveal melanoma (UM).

Methods: We assessed patient-reported outcomes regarding anxiety (GAD-7) before and 2 years after proton therapy and depression (PHQ-9) before, 1, and 2 years after proton therapy. We performed descriptive statistics and used linear mixed effect modeling to analyze how the oncological outcome and baseline characteristics impacted anxiety and depression scores.

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Background: The concept of patient navigation was first established in the USA to support vulnerable patient groups in receiving timely and comprehensive access to cancer care. It has recently gained increasing interest in Germany to support patients with chronic diseases in a fragmented healthcare system. The aim of this paper is to present the development of such a model adapted to the German context based on the results of mixed-methods studies investigating the need for and barriers to patient-oriented care.

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Objective: Cancer affects the patients as well as their partners. Couples use different strategies to cope with cancer and the associated burden: individual coping, dyadic coping, and support from the social network and from professional health care. The aim of this qualitative dyadic interviews is to gain a deeper and more differentiated understanding of the support system inside and outside of the couple.

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  • Cytogenetic testing (CGT) helps uveal melanoma patients understand their risk of cancer spreading, but there's no treatment that can change the results, making it just information.
  • In a study, 121 patients answered questions about their interest in CGT, with 43% not interested, 28.1% unsure, and 28.9% wanting to know.
  • Many patients felt stressed about the decision and were influenced by their doctors and online information, especially worrying that knowing their test results could change their lives.
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Introduction: Breast cancer (BC) survivors often suffer from disease- and therapy-related long-term side-effects. The study aim was to explore the feasibility, adherence, and individual experiences as well as possible effects of 2 different walking interventions in BC patients.

Methods: This randomized controlled, pragmatic pilot trial included a qualitative study component.

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  • The study looked at the differences between cancer patients who went back to work and those who didn't over one year.
  • Out of 430 patients, 73.7% returned to work, but non-working patients had higher feelings of sadness, worry, and stress.
  • It suggests that getting back to work might help cancer survivors feel better mentally, but more research is needed to prove this.
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Objective: This qualitative study investigated patients' needs and wishes in relation to patient navigation.

Design: A qualitative interview study was conducted. Participants were invited to take part in three in-depth interviews over a period of 6-12 months.

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Introduction: CeFCiD was a multicenter phase II study comparing the efficacy of cetuximab (C), 5-flourouracil, and cisplatin with the same regimen adding docetaxel (D) in recurrent/metastatic head and neck cancer. The primary analysis trial did not demonstrate survival benefit from therapy intensification in first-line recurrent and/or metastatic squamous cell carcinoma of the head and neck (SCCHN). The current analysis of the trial assessed the impact of treatment on quality of life (QoL).

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Background: Proton beam therapy is a well-established treatment option for patients with uveal melanoma (UM). The treatment procedure, in general, includes placing radiopaque clips to ensure exact eye-positioning during radiotherapy, followed by the delivery of proton irradiation. The short-term burden associated with proton therapy in patients with UM has rarely been addressed.

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Purpose: Although subjective knowledge about the prognosis of an advanced disease is extremely important for coping and treatment planning, the concept of prognostic awareness (PA) remains inconsistently defined. The aims of the scoping review were to synthesize a definition of PA from the most recent literature, describe preconditions, correlates and consequences, and suggest a conceptual model.

Methods: By using scoping review methodology, we searched the and databases, and included publications, reviews, meta-analyses or guidelines on all physical diagnoses, as well as publications offering a conceptual or an operational definition of PA.

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A monthly videoconference was maintained over 1 year, allowing senior psychooncologists from German Comprehensive Cancer Centers to discuss the implications of the Covid‐19 pandemic for psychooncological care. In the early phase of the pandemic, a widespread disruption of psychooncological services was noted. Rapidly developed adaptations of regular services worked well and sometimes brought about unexpected, creative solutions.

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Objective: The aim of this article is to understand how, when and why the topics of information and information needs arise when people diagnosed with colorectal cancer (CRC) narrate their illness experiences.

Methods: Guided by principles of grounded theory, a qualitative interview study was conducted that collected a wide variety of illness experiences with CRC in Germany using maximum variation sampling. Sampling criteria included place of residence, age at interview, age at diagnosis, treatment, disease course and sociodemographic factors such as varying family backgrounds and professions.

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Objectives: Several patient factors have been described to influence access to optimal cancer care like socioeconomic factors or place of residence. In this study, we investigate whether data routinely collected in a clinical cancer registry can be used to identify populations of lung cancer patients with increased risk of not receiving optimal cancer care.

Methods: We analysed data of 837 lung cancer patients extracted from the clinical cancer registry of a German university hospital.

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