Recent study findings reveal that marriage and friendship may actually help a cancer patient survive the illness, according to NBC News.

Researchers at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Brigham and Women's Hospital found that patients diagnosed with cancer have a significantly better chance at survival when they are married and have a loving, support system to rely on as they deal with the illness, as revealed by NBC News. Married patients also have the advantage in discovering the illness in its early stages, which means that they have a better chance at getting the appropriate treatment early on. One cancer survivor named Tom says of his wife, "I don't know that I would have survived this long is it wasn't for her," as reported by NBC News.

The findings of the study is available online on the Journal of Clinical Oncology, and lead author Ayal Aizer explains that, "Our data suggests that marriage can have a significant health impact for patients with cancer, and this was consistent among every cancer that we reviewed; we suspect that social support from spouses is what's driving the striking improvement in survival," as reported by Science Codex.

The key however, is not in being married itself, but the love and care that the patient receives from those in his or her circle. Aizer explains that married patients often have their spouses during hospital visits, so that they have a support system that understands the doctor's recommendations and that motivates them to complete the needed treatments.

The researchers used data from the National Cancer Institute's Surveillance, Epidemiology and End Results Program, conducting a retrospective analysis of 734,889 cancer patients afflicted with the ten leading causes of cancer deaths in America. To gain a better perspective, the team also considered factors such as age, sex, race, residence type, education and median household income, which could have significant impact on the health aspect of the study. The findings reveal that unmarried cancer patients were "17 percent more likely to have metastatic cancer (cancer that spread beyond its original site) and were 53 percent less likely to receive the appropriate therapy," as reported by Science Codex.

Dr. Paul Nguyen, one of the researchers, emphasized that the study is not merely an "affirmation of marriage, but rather it should send a message to anyone who has a friend or a loved one with cancer: by being there for that person and helping them navigate their appointments and make it through all their treatments, you can make a real difference to that person's outcome," he explained.