Using antidepressants after a diagnosis of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) may reduce overall and cancer-specific mortality, according to recent research.
A study published in JAMA Network Open Preliminary research finds that patients with liver cancer who take antidepressants after diagnosis can reduce mortality.
Hepatocellular carcinoma, the most common type of liver cancer, is a type of adenocarcinoma, a cancer that forms in glandular tissue and releases mucus and other substances throughout the body, according to the National Cancer Institute.
The study’s authors stress that the research is important because liver cancer is difficult to detect early and surgery is not suitable for patients with advanced disease and a median survival time of less than two years.
Their aim was to see if using drugs not typically used as anti-cancer treatments could be an effective approach.
The study was conducted in Taiwan and included 308,938 HCC patients from 1999 to 2017. The study evaluated patients based on whether they used antidepressants before or after they were diagnosed with liver cancer.
The authors identified 21,202 patients who had used antidepressants within the year before their diagnosis of HCC, and 287,736 patients who had not used antidepressants before their diagnosis of HCC.
The authors found that 66,211 patients took antidepressant medication after diagnosis and 235,083 patients did not take antidepressant medication after diagnosis.
The authors wrote: “People who took antidepressants before or after a liver cancer diagnosis were more likely than those who did not take antidepressants to be female or have low income status, (hepatitis C virus) (or) alcohol use disorder… “. “Compared with the group not using antidepressants, the group who used antidepressants after diagnosis of HCC had higher rates of liver surgery and radiofrequency ablation and lower rates of chemotherapy and sorafenib (Nexavar) treatment. “
In this study, the authors also evaluated the association between mortality and antidepressant use before and after diagnosis of HCC.
The authors determined that the overall mortality rate for antidepressant use before diagnosis was 15.68 per 100 person-years (the measurement takes into account the number of patients in the study and the time each patient spent in the study). The overall mortality rate among patients not taking antidepressants before diagnosis was 12.14 per 100 person-years.
“We observed that antidepressant use before liver cancer diagnosis was not significantly associated with lower cancer-specific mortality,” the authors wrote.
They write: “When examining the duration of antidepressant use within the one-year exposure window before HCC diagnosis, short-term (less than or equal to 90 days) and long-term (more than 90 days) antidepressant use was associated with an increased risk of overall mortality and cancer Similar results were shown for specific mortality.”
To analyze the association between mortality and use of antidepressants after patients were diagnosed with HCC, the authors found an overall mortality rate of 10.03 per 100 person-years. The overall mortality rate in the non-user group was 15.45 per 100 person-years.
Patients in the antidepressant subgroup took selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs), serotonin-norepinephrine reuptake inhibitors (SNRIs), and tricyclic antidepressants (TCAs), all of which are antidepressants. Depression medications.
After receiving a diagnosis of HCC, the overall mortality rate among patients in the antidepressant subgroup ranged from 3.62 to 5 per 100 person-years. The authors also noted that the overall lower mortality rate in this subgroup was due to the use of SSRIs, SNRIs, and TCAs after diagnosis.
“Our results indicate that use of antidepressants, including SSRIs, SNRIs, and TCAs, after HCC diagnosis is associated with reduced overall and cancer-specific mortality in a large representative cohort,” the study authors wrote.
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