Objective To explore depression and anxiety in nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC) patients in Chaoshan region and investigate their influencing factors. Methods Two hundred and one patients newly diagnosed with NPC were included in this study. The status of depression and anxiety during their hospital stay were evaluated using the self-rating depression scale (SDS) and the self-rating anxiety scale (SAS). Data including sex, age, education, history of smoking, course of disease, sleeping quality and oral pain were also collected and their relationships with depression and anxiety were analyzed as well. Results They had significantly higher mean SAS score (36.41 ± 7.41) and SDS score (48.42 ± 7.19), as compared with the healthy population. Single factor analysis indicated that age, education, history of smoking, course of disease, sleeping quality, and oral pain had significant impact on the scores of SAS and SDS. Multivariate logistics regression analysis indicated that age, education, history of smoking, course of disease, sleeping quality, and oral pain had significant impact on their anxiety and depression. Conclusions Depression and anxiety are common psychological problems in NPC patients. Patients at the middle to elderly age and with low education, history of smoking, bad sleeping quality and oral pain are more susceptible to depression and anxiety.

Objective To investigate the differences of clinicopathologic characteristics and prognosis between young and old age patients with rectal cancer. Methods From January 1996 to January 2006, 85 young patients(age≤40 years) and 155 older patients(age≥65 years)with rectal cancer were surgically treated. The clinicopathological and follow-up data of them were retrospectively analyzed and compared by survival analysis and COX regression multivariate analysis. Results Rectal cancer under peritoneal in young group were higher than that in older group (69.41 % vs 52.90 %, P =0.013). The young group had significantly higher frequencies of pooly differentiated carcinoma (31.76 % vs 18.71 %, P =0.023) and more mucinous adenocarcinoma as well as signet-ring cell carcinoma (22.35 % vs 8.39 %, P =0.007), There were more lymphatic metastasis in young group than that in old group (N_1+N_2: 63.53 % vs 47.10 %, P =0.015). The overall 5-year survival rates were 48.2 % and 55.7 % in young and old patients respectively, which was not significantly different (P =0.176). COX regression showed that radical operation, tumor infiltration depth,lymph node metastasis and TNM stage were independent prognostic factors. Conclusion As compared to the old age patients, more malignancy and more advanced stage are common in young patients with rectal cancer.However the efficacy of young patients is similar to the older counters by early detection and radical operation combined radiotherapy as well as chemotherapy.