Objective: Clinical guidelines like National Comprehensive Cancer Network Disease recommend routine psychological distress screening as a common problem among patients with cancer. The purpose of this study was to assess the prevalence of clinically significant emotional distress related to demographic and clinical association by standard distress thermometer (DT) within the patients lived in different regions of Gilan state, Iran. Methods: Participants (n = 256) completed the DT, rapid screening measure for distress and identified the presence or absence of 34 problems using the standardized checklist. Results: More than 59 percent of participants had more than 4 cut-off score for distress. The scores varied significantly in case of reported emotional source of distress, physical, physiological and total number of concerns (P < 0.001).DT scores more than four were more likely to report 22 of 32 problems on the problem list. In case of the practical and family problems, the main problems were related to child care and dealing with children, respectively. Moreover worrisome and nervousness were considered the prominent emotional problems in the list. Conclusion: Our result promise that distress thermometer measurement tool compare favorably with longer measures used to screening of distress in cancerous patients. Accompaniment of a psychologist expert in lethal or chronic disease consultation with the therapeutic team and training the rest of members of the team might be able to decrease the emotional distress problems of the cancerous patients.