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Incidence, trend and risk factors associated with suicide among patients with malignant intracranial tumors: a surveillance, epidemiology, and end results analysis

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Abstract

Background

Cancer patients are associated with an elevated risk of suicide. This study aims to investigate the suicide rates and identify risk factors for suicide among patients with malignant intracranial tumors (MITs).

Methods

Patients diagnosed with MITs during the years of 1975–2015 were identified from the Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER) program. Suicide rates and standardized mortality ratios (SMR) were calculated. Cox regression analyses were used to identified risk factors for suicide among MIT patients.

Results

Among 115,668 patients with MITs collected from the SEER program, 99 committed suicide. The rate of suicide was 23.02 per 100,000 person-years, and SMR of suicide was 1.90. Diagnosis in recent era (years 2000–2015, SMR = 2.01), male gender (SMR = 1.78), older age (60–79 years, SMR = 3.54), white race (SMR = 1.86), married persons (SMR = 2.31), living in rural areas (SMR = 2.50), history of other malignancy (SMR = 3.81), diagnosis of glioblastoma (SMR = 4.05) and supratentorial location (SMR = 2.45) were associated with an increased incidence of suicide. In addition, the risk of suicide increased significantly within the first year after diagnosis (SMR = 13.04). Multivariate Cox regressions showed that older age, male sex, and supratentorial location were independent risk factors for suicide.

Conclusions

The suicide mortality among patients with MITs steadily elevated in the past decades. Male sex, older age, and supratentorial location were significantly associated with risk of suicide, especially within the first year following diagnosis. Healthcare providers should early identify and effectively intervene with MIT patients at risk.

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Data availability

All data in this study can be downloaded from public website or software mentioned in the text.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (81772675), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (82104910), the Natural Science Foundation of Guangdong Province (2018A0303130320) and the Guangdong Basic and Applied Basic Research Foundation (2021A1515010122).

Funding

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (81772675), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (82104910), the Natural Science Foundation of Guangdong Province (2018A0303130320) and the Guangdong Basic and Applied Basic Research Foundation (2021A1515010122).

Author information

Author notes

  1. Zhihuan Zhou, Pingping Jiang and Peiyu Zhang contributed equally to this work.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Neurosurgery/Neuro-Oncology, Sun Yat-Sen University Cancer Center, 651 Dongfeng Road East, Guangzhou, 510060, China

    Zhihuan Zhou, Peiyu Zhang, Qinqin Zhao, Xia Wen, Xiaoyan Lin, Yueli Wang, Yu Yang, Xiaobing Jiang, Zhongping Chen, Yonggao Mou, Depei Li & Ke Sai

  2. State Key Laboratory of Oncology in South China, Collaborative Innovation Center for Cancer Medicine, Sun Yat-Sen University Cancer Center, 651 Dongfeng Road East, Guangzhou, 510060, China

    Zhihuan Zhou, Peiyu Zhang, Xiaoping Lin, Qinqin Zhao, Xia Wen, Xiaoyan Lin, Yueli Wang, Yu Yang, Xiaobing Jiang, Zhongping Chen, Yonggao Mou, Depei Li & Ke Sai

  3. Department of Traditional Chinese Medicine, The First Affiliated Hospital of Guangdong Pharmaceutical University, Guangzhou, 510060, People’s Republic of China

    Pingping Jiang

  4. Department of Nuclear Medicine, Sun Yat-Sen University Cancer Center, Guangzhou, 510060, People’s Republic of China

    Xiaoping Lin

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  1. Zhihuan Zhou
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Contributions

KS and DL designed this study. XL, QZ, XW, XL, YW, YY, XJ and DL analyzed the data. ZZ, PJ and PZ drafted this manuscript. KS, YM and ZC revised the manuscript. All authors approved the publication of the manuscript.

Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Depei Li or Ke Sai.

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Conflicts of interest

The authors have no relevant financial or non-financial interests to disclose.

Ethical approval

This study was exempted from institutional review board approval and patients informed consent was waived, because the SEER data are anonymized and considered non-human participant research.

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Cite this article

Zhou, Z., Jiang, P., Zhang, P. et al. Incidence, trend and risk factors associated with suicide among patients with malignant intracranial tumors: a surveillance, epidemiology, and end results analysis. Int J Clin Oncol 27, 1386–1393 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10147-022-02206-9

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10147-022-02206-9

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