Burnout is a multidimensional syndrome and includes symptoms of emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, and reduced personal accomplishment at work. Oncology health care providers are at high risk to develop symptoms of burnout because of work-related stressors. Adaptive coping strategies adopted to deal with stressors may prevent the development of burnout.

Recently, surrogate neurobiological biomarkers that correlate with target engagement and therapeutic response have been developed and tested in early phase studies of mood disorders.

Inflammation is involved in the pathophysiology of depression, and circulating inflammatory cytokines have been associated with depressive symptoms. However, measuring circulating cytokines have inherent methodological limitations. lipopolysaccharide (LPS)-stimulated intracellular cytokines (ICCs) overcome these limitations. Furthermore, because psychosocial and physiological stressors activate inflammatory responses and LPS-stimulated ICCs reflect the inflammatory responsivity of monocytes to such stressors, ICCs may reflect individual stress responsivity.