Skip to main content

Depression Interventions Helpful for Cancer Patients

TOP - Daily

Current guidelines recommend screening for depression in cancer patients; however, it has been uncertain whether interventions are effective. Now, a recent study published in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute supports interventions designed to treat depression in patients with cancer. Researchers from the University of Colorado Cancer Center and other institutions performed a meta-analysis of 10 studies encompassing 1362 patients and determined that cognitive behavioral therapy and pharmacologic interventions decrease depressive symptoms in cancer patients.

“This study shows not only that interventions specific to depression in cancer patients can improve symptoms, but shows which interventions are likely to offer the most benefit,” says Kristin Kilbourn, PhD, CU Cancer Center investigator and assistant professor of psychology at the University of Colorado Denver.

The recent study is the result of a 5-year endeavor during which researchers analyzed randomized control trials in which cancer patients reported a significant number of depressive symptoms prior to starting the intervention.

“This study supports the notion that screening for depression in cancer patients is important because if we could identify people early in the process and intervene, we now know definitively that we can affect the trajectory of this depression,” Kilbourn says.

Source: University of Colorado Cancer Center.