Depression and cancer risk....

Your Article Summary Depression and cancer risk: 24 years of follow-up of the Baltimore Epidemiologic Catchment Area sample (>> click to go to the journal's website) Cancer Causes and Control, 11/09/09

Gross AL et al. - Results reveal a specificity to the association between depression and hormonally mediated cancers, which provides support to hypotheses about a common biological pathway between depression and cancer. Methods Population-based sample of 3,177 cancer-free adults from Baltimore Epidemiologic Catchment Area Study followed for 24 years. Cox proportional hazards models used to estimate relative hazards for both overall and subtype-specific cancers among those with history of depression Results Risk set contained 334 incident cancer cases and 40,530 person-years of observation DIS/DSM-III major depression associated with higher hazard for overall cancer (HR: 1.9, 95% CI: 1.2, 3.0) and statistically significant increased hazard for breast cancer (HR: 4.4, 95% CI: 1.08, 17.6) among women Positive association between history of depression and prostate cancer Confidence bounds included null No reliable associations found between colon, lung, or skin cancers and depression Pattern of results similar for dysphoria, but not for phobia or other mental disorders studied