Despite increases in overall suicide rates in the United States during the past two decades, cancer-related suicides declined by 2.8% per year, according to a new study by the American Cancer Society. The study, appearing in
JNCI:
The
Journal of the National Cancer Institute , found that the largest declines in cancer-related suicide rates were among high-risk populations, suggesting an evolving role of psycho-oncology and palliative and hospice care for cancer patients and survivors during this period. To examine the trends in cancer-related suicides compared to overall suicides in the U.S., investigators led by Xuesong Han, PhD, calculated average annual percentage change of suicide rates stratified by risk factors including age, sex, urban/rural status and cancer type. They found that of cancer-related suicides, lung cancer (18.2%), prostate cancer (15.4%), and colorectal cancer (9.1%) were the most common contributing causes. They also found that cancer-related sui