Social interaction affects response.

• Position: Chemotherapy

How well cancer patients fared after chemotherapy was affected by their social interaction with other patients during treatment, indicates a study by researchers at the National Human Genome Research Institute, Bethesda, Md., and the United Kingdom's University of Oxford.

"People model behavior based on what's around them," says Jeff Lienert, lead author in NHGRI's Social and Behavioral Research Branch and a senior fellow in the Oxford-Cambridge Scholars Program. "For example, you will often eat more when you're dining with friends, even if you can't see what they're eating. When you're bicycling, you will often perform better when you're cycling with others, regardless of their performance."

When patients were around those during chemotherapy who died in less than five years following chemotherapy, they had a 72% chance of dying within five years following their chemotherapy. The best outcome was when patients interacted with someone who survived for five years or longer: they had a 68% chance of dying within five...