The burden is not over for breast cancer patients even after the battle with breast cancer is won. A new study suggests that breast cancer survivors have an increased risk committing suicide compared to women in the general population. Survivors of breast cancer have as much as 37 percent increased risk of committing suicide compared to other women and this increased risk of suicide persist for more than 25 years after the diagnosis of breast cancer.

These study findings were published in a recent issue of the Journal of the National Cancer Institute. There have been previous studies on this topic but none have undertaken such a long-term study of the subject and none of the studies included women from the United States of America.

This conclusion is from analysis of a large pool of data involving 723,810 breast cancer survivors who were diagnosed between 1953 and 2001 and were included in population-based cancer registries in the United States and Scandinavia.

The researchers have found that during follow-up through 2002, a total of 836 women committed suicide. Compared with the general population the women with breast cancer had a suicide rate of 4.1 per 100,000 women per year.

Even after a period of 25 years, breast cancer survivors still had a 35 percent increased risk of committing suicide. Suicide rates were higher among African American women, with a 2.88-fold elevated risk. Researchers noted that the risk of committing suicide increases with increasing stage of breast cancer.

Posted by: Betsy

---