A new study from David Spiegel, MD at Stanford, shows that support groups don't extend the lives of women with metastatic breast cancer. These results are different from other findings by Spiegel that group therapy did extend overall survival.

However, this new research does show that support groups improve quality of life, including improving mood and improving pain control. While no overall survival benefit was found, a survival benefit for a group of patients with an aggressive form of breast cancer who attended group therapy was shown.

Spiegel's work on support groups is well-known and when he started his research on support groups in the 1970s, virtually no cancer patients were in support groups.This latest study was launched in 1991. The women who attended group therapy had a median survial of 31 months versus 33 months for those women who did not receive group therapy and only received educational materials.

However, women with estrogen receptive-negative tumors, an aggressive form of breast cancer, who received the group therapy had a median survival of almost 30 months, 21 months longer than those who received only educational materials.

"The big question was whether there was an overall survival advantage for those people in therapy, and the answer was no," said Spiegel. "I was surprised and a little disappointed by the findings." Despite the finding on survival, Spiegel says that it remains clear that support groups provide great benefits to cancer patients.

"I've never told my patients to join a support group because it makes you live longer - I've said to do it because it helps you to live better," he said.

I agree with Spiegel's conclusion. While it is tempting to try to find treatments and therapies that can extend survival, increasing quality of life also counts as a success.