[The psychological implications of cancer in the relations of the patient with the family and hospital environment].

Interviews with cancer patients, their families and hospital staff have been carried out in order to give psychological help to these patients. One of the purpose was to give each patient the possibility to speak about his fears and his distress. The authors show how different people react to a possibly mortal illness, and give an account about these patients' relations with their families, hospital doctors and nurses. Hospital staff and family members, in fact, continuously do their best to mislead cancer patients about diagnosis and prognosis; but, since ill people are usually aware (unconsciously, sometimes) of the severity of their disease, these lies leave patients completely alone to deal with the awareness of cancer and death.