Summary

A historical review of observations, findings, and research activities demonstrates that the role of the nervous system in cancer has been the focus of attention for centuries. Humoral theories of disease and the experience of clinicians since antiquity have suggested that cancer is at least partly psychosomatic in nature. Advances in the surgical treatment of tumors and, later, the introduction of radiotherapy and chemotherapy into oncology led to a gradual decline in interest in investigating the role of the nervous system in the initiation and progression of cancer. In this period, the previous psychosomatic view of tumors was replaced by a view of tumors as diseases confined to the tumor tissue, which can be surgically removed or treated with radiotherapy and chemotherapy. Thus, the tumor was reduced from the patient to the tumor tissue. The holistic, comprehensive view of cancer that dominated in the past has disappeared. It was not until the last two decades of the twentieth century when scientists and oncologists intensively investigated the role of psychosocial factors and the nervous system in the processes related to cancer incidence and progression. Neurobiological research on cancer focused on the mechanisms and pathways that transform the impact of psychosocial factors on the tumor.