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Title: New-Onset Depression Linked to Tamoxifen: Presented at APA

"New-Onset Depression Linked to Tamoxifen: Presented at APA"

By Bruce Sylvester SAN FRANCISCO, CA -- May 25, 2003 -- There is a higher incidence of new-onset depression in women being treated with tamoxifen for breast cancer than for those on other treatments. Kelly Lee, PharmD, a research fellow in the department of clinical pharmacology, University of California Medical Center, in San Francisco, California, United States, reported the finding on May 19th here at the 156th Annual Meeting of the American Psychiatric Association. Investigators performed a retrospective analysis of women diagnosed with breast cancer between January 1, 1997 and December 31, 2000, using the electronic database of the Kaiser Permanente Health Maintenance Organization. Data were gathered on new diagnoses of depression within a year of initiating treatment. They studied the files of 1,930 tamoxifen users and 509 women treated with other therapies. About 60% of the subjects were younger than 60 years of age; 83% were Caucasian. The study's primary outcome was the rate of new-onset depression within 1 year of breast cancer diagnosis. Depression was defined as a diagnosis according to the International Classification of Diseases, Ninth Revision, initiation of antidepressant therapy, or both, according to the researchers. Results show a rate of new-onset depression of 17.82% in the tamoxifen group and 14.34% in the no-tamoxifen group (P=0.0641). "This retrospective study doesn't show exactly why the incidence is higher among tamoxifen-using subjects, but it does suggest that this is another factor to be considered in choosing this therapy with [breast cancer] patients," said Dr. Lee. The authors concluded that additional analysis is necessary to allow for the variability in duration of time between tamoxifen initiation and cancer diagnosis. [Study title: Tamoxifen Treatment and New-Onset Depression in Breast Cancer Patients. Abstract NR19]

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