(Ivanhoe Newswire) -- Patients undergoing a stressful treatment for blood-related cancers can have their moods lifted by listening to music.

People with Hodgkin's lymphoma, multiple myeloma, and other blood-related cancers often receive a treatment called high-dose therapy with autologous stem cell transplantation, or HDT/ASCT. The procedure is known to cause significant psychological distress, mainly due to severe side effects such as fatigue, anorexia, fever, and other problems, coupled with uncertainties about the outcome of the treatment and the need for isolation during a prolonged hospital stay.

Music therapy has been proven effective in helping patients cope with other medical issues, so researchers from Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York decided to see if it could also benefit patients undergoing HDT/ASCT. They studied about 70 patients scheduled for the procedure. One group received usual care, in which they could listen to music if they chose. The other group followed a structured program of music therapy, wherein a music therapist worked with the patient during regularly scheduled sessions, helping them choose music to ease their pain or relieve anxiety.

Patients who took part in the music therapy sessions scored 28 percent better on a standard anxiety/depression scale and 37 percent better on a total mood disturbance test than patients receiving usual care. Based on these findings, researchers conclude music therapy "...is a noninvasive and inexpensive intervention that appears to reduce mood disturbance in patients undergoing HDT/ASCT."

SOURCE: Cancer, 2003;98:2723-2729

This article was reported by Ivanhoe.com, who offers Medical Alerts by e-mail every day of the week. To subscribe, go to: http://www.ivanhoe.com/newsalert/.