Risk of depression following prostate cancer work-up: A nationwide study.

Abstract

5061 Background: Little is known about the psychological impact of undergoing evaluation for prostate cancer (PCa). We investigated the risk of developing a depression following PCa work-up with benign and malignant findings, respectively, compared with cancer-free men. Methods: A nationwide cohort of men who underwent prostate needle biopsies in Denmark from 1997–2011 was identified through the Danish Prostate Cancer Registry. Primary outcome was indication of moderate to severe depression defined as hospital contact for depression or first redemption of a prescribed antidepressant. For comparison, we selected a minimum of five age-matched cancer-free men per man who had undergone PCa specific diagnostic work-up. We excluded men with other cancer, major psychiatric disorder or use of antidepressants up to three years before study entry. Information on outcome and covariates (age, period, cohabitation status, income quintile and comorbidity) were retrieved from National Danish registries. We illustrated the risk of depression by cumulative incidence functions. Data were analyzed using Cox models adjusted for possible confounders. Results: We identified 54,766 men who underwent work-up including transrectal biopsies of the prostate, among these, 21,419 biopsy sets were benign and 33,347 men were diagnosed with PCa. We found an increasing cumulative incidence of depression in all groups. However, men diagnosed with PCa had a significantly higher risk throughout up to 18 years of follow-up. The adjusted hazard ratio (HR) of depression in men diagnosed with PCa was increased throughout follow-up with the highest risk in the two years following diagnosis (HR 2.77, 95% CI 2.66–2.87). After undergoing biopsies, men with benign results had an increased risk of depression (HR 1.22, 95% CI 1.14–1.31) in the first two years compared with cancer-free men; hereafter, we found no difference. Conclusions: We found an increased risk of depression in men following diagnostic work-up for PCa compared with a matched background population. In men diagnosed with PCa, the risk remained increased throughout the study period. Future studies are needed to further analyze the impact of stage and treatment modalities.