Common psychiatric disorders in cancer patients. II. Anxiety and acute confusional states.

Anxiety is a very prominent symptom of cancer patients and appears most frequently in connection with adjustment disorders. However, it can also be part of a normal adaptation to the disease, related to an anxiety disorder, or can be caused by variety of other reasons, including underlying somatic processes. The clinical presentation, etiology, diagnostic proceedings and the treatment of anxiety in patients with cancer is surveyed. Delirium (acute confusional states) is a neglected psychiatric syndrome in regard to diagnosis, treatment and research efforts. Especially in cancer patients, delirium is frequent and its incidence increases with advanced disease. A brief overview on the current literature of acute confusional states in cancer patients is presented.