Cancer diagnosis ups heart attack, suicide risk

People who are told they have cancer have a sharply higher risk of suicide and fatal heart attacks immediately after receiving their diagnosis, a Swedish study published Thursday showed.

“Previous studies have shown that cancer patients are at higher risk of suicide and cardiovascular disease, which up until now has mainly been ascribed to the emotional strain of living with the potentially fatal disease and the often physically demanding cancer treatment,” the Karolinska Institute said. “Newly published data on patients with prostate cancer suggest, however, that being given the diagnosis may, in itself, be associated with a marked increase in the stressrelated disease and death,” it said.

The study, published in the New England Journal of Medicine, followed more than six million Swedes from 2001 to 2006, including more than 500,000 who were diagnosed with cancer during that period.

“Only a small proportion of pa- tients committed suicide immediately after being diagnosed with cancer. However, the suicide risk during the first week following the diagnosis was twelve times higher than in people without cancer,” the Karolinska said.

“Similarly, the risk of cardiovascular death was six times higher during the first week and three times higher during the first month after a cancer diagnosis, compared to people without cancer,” it said.

The fact that the risk decreased in magnitude over time “supports the conclusion that the risk increase may be traced to the diagnosis itself rather than the emotional or physical suffering related to progression of the cancer or its treatment,” it said.