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Psychiatric disorder and its association with gastrointestinal cancer: a retrospective cohort study with 45,842 patients in Germany

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Abstract

Purpose

Psychiatric disorders and cancer are both common, and comorbidity has detrimental impacts on cancer outcomes. Previous studies focus on affective disorders which arise after cancer diagnosis, not on the impact of psychiatric disorders on cancer risk. We investigate the association between psychiatric disorders and subsequent gastrointestinal cancer in a large cohort in Germany.

Methods

This case–control study used secondary data (electronic medical records) from the national IQVIA Disease Analyzer database. We evaluated the association between previous psychiatric diagnosis in 44,582 matched patients with and without gastrointestinal (GI) cancer. Regression analyses were stratified by psychiatric diagnosis and adjusted by chronic comorbidities and previous psychiatric treatments.

Results

No association between any previous psychiatric disease and GI cancers was found (OR = 0.98 (0.95–1.02 95%CL, p = 0.39). Previous psychosomatic disorder and GI cancer showed a significant negative association (OR: 0.86, 0.81–0.90 95%CL, p < 0.0001). No association was found between previous diagnosis with depression or PTSD and GI cancer. These results remained consistent when including previous psychiatric treatments in the regression analyses.

Conclusion

Psychiatric disease was not associated with GI cancer risk. Further investigation into the pathways linking psychiatric disease and cancer needs to be conducted, taking into consideration psychiatric treatments administered, to enhance our understanding of the relationship between these two common and devastating diseases.

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Data availability

Restrictions apply to the availability of this data. Data is available upon reasonable request.

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Funding

This research did not receive any specific grant from funding agencies in the public, commercial or not–for–profit sectors.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Epidemiology, IQVIA, Frankfurt, Germany

    Hannah Moessinger & Karel Kostev

  2. Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, Université Paris Cité, AP–HP, Lariboisière–Fernand Widal Hospital, Paris, France

    Louis Jacob

  3. Inserm U1153, Epidemiology of Ageing and Neurodegenerative Diseases (EpiAgeing), Université Paris Cité, Paris, France

    Louis Jacob

  4. Research and Development Unit, Parc Sanitari Sant Joan de Déu, CIBERSAM, ISCIII, Dr. Antoni Pujadas, Barcelona, Spain

    Louis Jacob & Ai Koyanagi

  5. Centre for Health, Performance, and Wellbeing, Anglia Ruskin University, Cambridge, UK

    Lee Smith

  6. Institució Catalana de Recerca I Estudis Avançats (ICREA), Pg. Lluis Companys 23, Barcelona, Spain

    Ai Koyanagi

  7. Department of Gynecology and Obstetrics, University Hospital Marburg, Philipps–University Marburg, Baldingerstraße, 35043, Marburg, Germany

    Karel Kostev

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  1. Hannah Moessinger
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  2. Louis Jacob
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Contributions

HM: conducted the literature research, analysis and manuscript writing, KK and HM: designed the study. KK, LJ, LS and AK: corrected the manuscript. All authors have approved the final manuscript.

Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Hannah Moessinger or Karel Kostev.

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The authors declare no competing interests.

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The authors declare that they have no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship and/or publication of this article.

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All research was conducted in compliance with relevant ethical guidelines. Due to the anonymized nature of the data included in DA, in compliance with German laws on data protection, no ethics approval is needed for analyses based on secondary data.

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Moessinger, H., Jacob, L., Smith, L. et al. Psychiatric disorder and its association with gastrointestinal cancer: a retrospective cohort study with 45,842 patients in Germany. J Cancer Res Clin Oncol 149, 14509–14518 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00432-023-05229-5

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