Cancer: Mental health and suicide risk among adults with cancer examined

 
A paper reporting that cancer patients diagnosed with mental illness have a higher mortality rate and a higher risk of self-harm than other cancer patients is published in Nature Medicine.Another paper found that cancer patients were almost twice as likely to commit suicide as the general population.These findings are based on the analysis of the prevalence of psychiatric disorders and the incidence of self-harm in adult patients with major cancers in the largest population to date.

Over the last few decades, cancer treatments have improved and the prognosis has improved, but cancer patients are still at high risk of suicide.However, it remains to be seen how mental health affects suicide and survival outcomes in the case of cancer.The main reason for this is that studies with sufficient sample sizes have not been conducted to demonstrate these effects.

Alvina Lai and Wai Hoong Chang now analyze population-based data from two large electronic medical record databases over a period of about 23 years to examine cases of mental illness and self-harm in 2 cancer types. (Of 26 people aged 18 and over).As a result, depression is the most common psychiatric disorder in cancer patients, and the highest cumulative prevalence of psychiatric disorders is chemotherapy, radiation therapy, surgery, and alkylating agents (of certain types of cancer). It turned out to be the case of receiving (used for treatment) and the case of testicular cancer.There is also an increased risk of death and increased risk of self-injury within 45 months of psychiatric illness (depression, anxiety disorders, schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, personality disorders, etc.). bottom.

In another study, Corinna Seliger and colleagues systematically validated 4600 studies involving more than 62 million patients and performed a meta-analysis to determine the suicide rate of cancer patients.As a result, these patients are nearly twice as likely to die from suicide as the general population, especially those with cancers that have a poor prognosis, such as liver cancer, stomach cancer, and head cancer. Suicide was found to be 2 times higher.

With these findings, cancer care and psychiatry can be informed to determine the patients at highest risk of suicide, detect early signs of suicidal ideation, and reduce the short-term and long-term risk of suicide. May help in attempts to coordinate medical care.

 
* This article is reprinted from "Nature Japan Featured Highlights".
Reprinted from: "Cancer: Investigating the mental health and suicide risk of adult cancer patients'