A new study revealed that it is important to detect and treat depression for breast cancer patients because if they have depression before or after their diagnosis, they are less likely to survive. This information was published in the American Cancer Society’s journal called CANCER on April 17.
Researchers from the University of Kentucky Markey Cancer Center studied data from the Kentucky Cancer Registry to see if there was a connection between depression diagnoses and breast cancer treatments. They looked at adult women diagnosed with primary invasive breast cancer between 2007-2011, and classified them as having no depression, a depression before their cancer diagnosis, a depression after the cancer diagnosis, or persistent depression (both before and after). Lastly, they checked to make sure these ladies received needed treatments by looking at National Comprehensive Cancer Network breast cancer treatment guidelines.
Out of 6,054 people studied, 4.1%, 3.7% and 6.2% had severe depression before diagnosis, after diagnosis and all the time respectively. 29.2% of people didn’t get proper medical care for their cancer and 26.3% died during a period of about four years following the study.
People who have been recently diagnosed with depression, or have had it for a while, were equally likely to get treatment that is suggested by doctors. However, people who had depression before they were diagnosed seem to be 25% less likely to receive the recommended care. We need more research to figure out why this might be happening.
Feeling sad before and after getting diagnosed with an illness can lead to worse outcomes than feeling no sadness at all. In other words, when people are feeling down beforehand, their risk of death is 26% higher. And for those who feel down after the diagnosis, their risk of death jumps up to 50%. Unfortunately, those that did not get the recommended treatment had a much higher chance (118%) of dying too.
People living in Appalachia were less likely to get the care they needed compared to those living somewhere else in Kentucky. But, there was not a big difference when it came to how long these people lived.
The results tell us that it is really important to diagnose and treat depression before and after a person has been diagnosed with breast cancer – this could make a huge difference in their care and survival.
Dr. Huang mentioned an interesting discovery from the study: people with depression don’t tend to have worse life expectancy than people who don’t have depression. This suggests that cancer patients with persistent (long-term) depression might be taking good care of their mental health. It’s really important for cancer patients to get screened and take care of their mental health during treatment period.
Doctor Huang believes that using data from cancer registries can help us learn more about how cancer affects different people and where changes in the way we care for cancer patients needs to happen. He says that further research into depression management and cancer treatment across different patient groups is needed. This research could then be used to change policy so that we treat and support cancer patients better.
This article is about how depression affects the way people are treated for breast cancer and also their chances of surviving. It was published on April 17th, 2023, in an academic journal called CANCER. The authors are Feitong Lei, Robin C. Vanderpool, Laurie E. McLouth, Edward H. Romond, Quan Chen, Eric B. Durbin, Thomas T. Tucker, Eric Tai and Bin Huang.
