• Posted August 5, 2024

Depression May Lower Breast Cancer Survival

Depression can lower a woman’s chances of surviving breast cancer, a new study reports.

Women with breast cancer and depression are more than three times as likely to die as women without either condition, researchers found.

By comparison, breast cancer patients who aren’t also suffering from depression are only 45% more likely to die than healthy women.

“The combination is what makes the risk of death increase tremendously and leads to thousands of years of life lost,” said lead researcher Jagdish Khubchandani, a professor of public health sciences at New Mexico State University.

“We found in our study that the co-occurrence of depression further reduces survival among women with breast cancer,” Khubchandani added in a university news release. “Unfortunately, many women with breast cancer do not get timely or quality care for mental health issues such as depression.”

For the study, researchers analyzed data on more than 4,700 women aged 45 and older, about 5% of whom had breast cancer while nearly 13% had depression. They were followed for about eight years.

“More than 4 million American women are living with breast cancer today, and more than a quarter-million American women will be diagnosed with breast cancer this year,” Khubchandani said. “Unfortunately, a large proportion of women with breast cancer suffer from depression, poor mental health and lower quality of life.”

Results show that certain types of women were more likely to have both depression and breast cancer, including those with low income or education, members of racial and ethnic minorities, and those with other chronic diseases or unhealthy lifestyles.

The new study was published recently in the journal Brain Sciences.

Researchers said the results show that women with breast cancer need to receive mental health support alongside their cancer treatment.

“We all know or will know someone with breast cancer in our lifetimes,” Khubchandani said. “Most likely, they will have poor psychological health or lower quality of life. It is in part because we do not have a comprehensive approach to health care for women with cancer.”

More information

Stanford Medicine has more on cancer and depression.

SOURCE: New Mexico State University, news release, July 26, 2024