A new study from researchers at Harvard University and the Karolinska Institute in Sweden has shown that the rates of both suicide and heart attack increase significantly in men during the first week after they are diagnosed with prostate cancer.
Doctors have long known that acute stress can result in dramatic health effects, but this is one of the first studies to show a fairly concrete spike in suicide and heart attack after prostate cancer diagnosis.
No one is quite sure as to what the implications of a study like this should be. Men still need to be told that they have been diagnosed with prostate cancer - it cannot really be avoided. Perhaps close monitoring of the recently diagnosed man by friends and family (as well as his physician) would be prudent.
Even without the dramatic results of suicide or heart attack, a prostate cancer diagnosis often leads to feelings of depression, anxiety, and a whole range of other emotions.
It's also important to remember that this study doesn't show that being diagnosed with prostate cancer causes suicide or heart attack, just that they are more common after diagnosis.
Photo by Janie Airey - Getty Images
Thank you for posting this kid of information. I have looked to many sites but no one give me the full details that I need and I find it here. Can you post more about it?
I recently had a 4.8 psa and a free psa of 10. biopsy was negative…i have had variable readings over the last few years from age 65 to 68 and a father who died of prostate cancer at 74. I write this to note that psa is not a perfect predictor and much stress is generated.
Thanks for the comment Steve. You’re right – the PSA test is not perfect and can lead to “false positive” results (meaning PSA is elevated but no cancer is detected). While it is not perfect, it does still have a great deal of value for screening and monitoring of prostate cancer.
Thank you for posting this information, it will help a lot of people.Can you tell me of other source of this information?
Alas … You appear to have overlooked the fact that this study actually showed a massive DECLINE in the numbers of patients who had a cardiovascular event in the first week after diagnosis of prostate cancer (from a relative risk of 11.2 in 1961-1986 to 2.8 in 1987-2004).
You also fail to mention that this study refers exclusively to men in Sweden!
Why are we scaring people instead of giving them accurate facts?
Thanks for the comments Mike.
Just to clarify, while the study did show that the risk of cardiovascular events and suicide following a new prostate cancer diagnosis did decrease after 1987 when compared to before 1987, it still showed that there is a significantly increased risk of both of these events above baseline following a new diagnosis.
The point of this study was simply to show that heart attack and suicide are significantly more common just after a new diagnosis – and that is what the study did.
Also – yes, the study was conducted in Sweden. Virtually all clinical studies (even very large ones such as the one we are discussing – which includes over 4,000,000 men) are confined to a single nation. Sweden has an excellent patient registry that includes nearly its entire population and, thus, numerous studies per year are published based solely on the Swedish populace.
About 3 months ago my PSA went to 4.77, from 2.95 a year or two earlier. Biopsy was positive, so I had my prostate removed entirely in early January, the hard way. Pathology showed that I had a tumor double the diameter estimated from biopsy, and was 3+4 Gleason. My life saved, I think. Anecdotal evidence is not scientific, but mine is another data point. Does PSA work? Incontinent & ED at 66, but maybe with a future.