Alexithymia, immunity and cervical intraepithelial neoplasia: replication

In a previous study [Psychother Psychosom 1994;61:199-204] we investigated the relationship between alexithymia, carcinogenesis and immunity in a group of women who were unconscious sufferers from precancerous lesions of the cervix (CIN). The results of this study showed a high level of association between alexithymia and CIN and, an even more interesting fact, between alexithymia and reduced levels of immunity.

The aim of the present study is to check the results of the previous one by testing a larger group (43 women affected by cervical dysplasia and 67 healthy women) and by the use of a self-administered test for detection of alexithymia, the well-validated Twenty-Item Toronto Alexithymia Scale (TAS-20).

The results confirm that women suffering from CIN have higher average TAS-20 ratings (55) than normal women (47.32) and that the level of alexithymia detected in the group of women suffering from dysplasia (42.5%) is higher than that of normal women (12.85%). Moreover, the present study confirms that alexithymic women have lower rates of a number of lymphocyte subsets than non-alexithymic women.

This study fully confirms the results of our previous work and those of a number of other studies: (1) personality might be one of the factors jointly responsible for the outbreak of cancer; (2) the immune system appears to play an important part as a mediator between personality and cancer.