A recent study revealed that adult patients with cancer who faced a new-onset mental health disorder (MHD) are at a significantly higher risk for death.
For the study, scientists aggregated data of 371,897 adult patients seen at University of California-affiliated hospitals with a cancer diagnosis and no documented MHDs before cancer diagnosis between 2013 and 2023, as per study published in Cancer.
Amir Ashraf Ganjouei, M.D., from University of California San Francisco (UCSF), and colleagues.
Scientists discovered that after an incident cancer diagnosis, 10.6 percent of patients developed a new MHD within a year.
Among those, 35.0 percent were consuming newly prescribed one or more oral psychotropic drugs.
In an analysis, early MHD was linked to higher all-cause mortality in the initial 12 through 35 months (hazard ratio [HR], 1.51; 95 percent confidence interval [CI], 1.47 to 1.56).
This risk diminished at 36 through 59 months (HR, 1.17; 95 percent CI, 1.11 to 1.24) and at 60 through 120 months (HR, 0.95; 95 percent CI, 0.89 to 1.01).
Lead author Julian Hong, M.D., also from UCSF, released a statement, which read, "Over the past several years, we’ve had an increasing appreciation for the important relationship between cancer, its treatment, and mental health."
"This study reproduces our prior work by leveraging the shared experience across the University of California system, reinforcing a relationship between mental health conditions and mortality for patients with cancer and highlighting the need to prioritize and manage mental health."
