Cancer may sigificantly increase risk of Suicide among elderly men above 75 years of age
It is well established that patients with cancer have a higher risk of suicide than the general population. A meta-analysis of data from over 22 million oncological patients estimated this risk to be 85 % higher than that of the general population
An Original article published in Maturitas entitled, “Risk of suicide in patients with cancer aged 75 years or more – Follow-up of over 400,000 individuals” highlighted that there is a higher risk of suicide among older men who are diagnosed with cancer.
According to this study, the team found the highest suicide risk in men with lymphoma, lung and kidney cancer.
It is already known that the elderly with a history of cancer are at higher risk of suicide. There needs to be more data available for a better understanding of risk factors.
In the present study, researchers identified groups at an increased risk of suicide among patients aged ≥75 years with a previous cancer diagnosis.
The Results of this study are:
- The study had 410,440 patients, including 211,730 men and 198,710 women.
- SMR for both sexes was 1.64
- When analyzed by sex, there was a higher risk only in men.
- The suicidal risk following diagnosis of lymphoma, lung, kidney, colorectal, urinary tract, and prostate cancer was 2.83, 2.63, 2.16, 1-96,1.86 and 1.40, respectively.
- Within six months of diagnosis, suicidal risk in men was highest.
They wrote, “Men aged ≥75 with a cancer diagnosis are at a higher risk of suicide.”
To our knowledge, this is the most thorough examination of suicides after a cancer diagnosis in the elderly in Central Europe, with estimates of over 400 thousand patients with cancer, they said.
Some of the unique strengths of this study are the large population, an extended follow-up period, SMR-type calculations, generalizability of the results.
Limitations are underreporting suicide as a death cause, lack of information on mental disorders, etc.
Further reading:
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0378512223003791
