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Researchers in the UCL Institute of Mental Health have been funded by the UCL Global Engagement Fund to establish an international research network to investigate risk of suicide in LMICs
This is to balance the preponderance of studies investigating this issue that analyse data from high income countries, as seen in this systematic review – Heinrich et al 2022 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-022-01745-y. The studies in this review analysed data from Europe, Australia, the US, Japan, South Korea and Taiwan. Consequently, we know little about the points in the cancer journey at which suicide risk is elevated in people with cancer in other regions. We know from 2019 data that 77% of global suicides occurred in Lower and Middle Income Countries (LMICs) and that the global suicide rate is approximately 11 per 100,000 population. We need to do more research to understand modifiable risk factors for suicide in LMIC settings, as a foundation for intervention development.
Events
On Wednesday 22 May 2024 we held a free webinar, funded by the UCL Global Engagement Fund, and co-hosted in London (at UCL by Dr Alexandra Pitman) and India (at The GRID Council by Dr Neethu Mohan) for researchers analysing cancer/mortality data in South Asian countries. We had advertised the webinar to researchers / clinicians / public health professionals interested in investigating suicide risk in patients with cancer, explaining that the webinar was aimed at those interested in networking with others working on the analysis of linked cancer registry data to mortality data in order to share ideas and generate collaborations.
In the webinar we heard an introduction from Dr Neethu Mohan describing the evidence gap in relation to analyses of suicide risk in patients with cancer in low- and middle-income countries. Dr Alexandra Pitman then summarised a recent systematic review on this topic (Heinrich et al 2022), which had reported an elevated risk of suicide in patients with cancer, particularly in patients with late stage / advanced cancer, those with tumours with a poor prognosis, and in the first year after diagnosis.
We then heard a presentation from Dr Katherine Thackray (née Henson) from the National Disease Registration Service (NDRS) at NHS England, and lead author of an analysis of English cancer registry data linked to mortality data investigating the risk of suicide in patients with cancer (Henson et al 2019). She set out the steps involved in the method and key sources of bias to consider in sensitivity analyses. We also heard a presentation from Dr Justin Yang, UCL, describing the code used for these analyses, which he presented in Stata, R, and Python, also providing access to the code.
The webinar was recorded and discussions focussed on barriers to linkage of routine cancer registry data to mortality data, queries about code and suggestions regarding collaborations.
Watch the 22 May webinar via this link. Zoom login required - use this passcode to watch: Ct6geT.4
A blog written by UCL MSc student, Shruti Menon, about the webinar is here: Investigating the risk of suicide in patients with cancer: webinar co-hosted by the UCL Institute of Mental Health (IoMH) and the GRID Council (India)
- Handouts
Slides from the presentations:
- PDF of the full schedule:
- A document containing a summary of Q&A from the discussion:
- A list of the 321 cancer registries Dr Menon identified across South Asian countries:
- A document providing more detail of the models used in the analysis by Henson et al 2019:
- A blog about the May 2024 webinar, written by MSc student Shruti Menon: Investigating the risk of suicide in patients with cancer: webinar co-hosted by the UCL Institute of Mental Health (IoMH) and the GRID Council (India)
- Code
- Stata
- R: The below html link contains the annotated R code and output. The output should be readable in any modern browser and shows some commentary, code (with further explanation), and tabular outputs. This R code has been written by Dr Justin Yang to be highly adaptable for lower-resource settings. You will need to copy and paste this link into your browser: file:///C:/Users/rejumtt/AppData/Local/Microsoft/Windows/INetCache/Content.Outlook/Y1M48RLU/ncras.html
- Python: click on the words 'Python Code' throughout this page to reveal the code for the relevant step in the analysis.
- A tutorial on using the code, developed by Dr Justin Yang, is available here: https://yangjustinc.github.io/2024-ncras
- Further reading
Allemani C, Matsuda T, Di Carlo V, Harewood R, Matz M, Nikšić M, Bonaventure A, Valkov M, Johnson CJ, Estève J, Ogunbiyi OJ, Azevedo E Silva G, Chen WQ, Eser S, Engholm G, Stiller CA, Monnereau A, Woods RR, Visser O, Lim GH, Aitken J, Weir HK, Coleman MP; CONCORD Working Group. Global surveillance of trends in cancer survival 2000-14 (CONCORD-3): analysis of individual records for 37 513 025 patients diagnosed with one of 18 cancers from 322 population-based registries in 71 countries. Lancet. 2018 Mar 17;391(10125):1023-1075. doi: 10.1016/S0140-6736(17)33326-3
Ernst M, Schwinn T, Hirschmiller J, Cleare S, Robb KA, Brähler E, Zwerenz R, Wiltink J, O'Connor RC, Beutel ME. To what extent are psychological variables considered in the study of risk and protective factors for suicidal thoughts and behaviours in individuals with cancer? A systematic review of 70 years of research. Clin Psychol Rev. 2024 Apr;109:102413. doi: 10.1016/j.cpr.2024.102413. Epub 2024 Mar 11. PMID: 38518584
Fang F, Fall K, Mittleman MA, Sparén P, Ye W, Adami HO, Valdimarsdóttir U. Suicide and cardiovascular death after a cancer diagnosis. N Engl J Med. 2012 Apr 5;366(14):1310-8. doi: 10.1056/NEJMoa1110307. https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa1110307
Grobman B, Mansur A, Babalola D, Srinivasan AP, Antonio JM, Lu CY. Suicide among Cancer Patients: Current Knowledge and Directions for Observational Research. J Clin Med. 2023 Oct 16;12(20):6563. doi: 10.3390/jcm12206563.
Heinrich M, Hofmann L, Baurecht H, Kreuzer PM, Knüttel H, Leitzmann MF, Seliger C. Suicide risk and mortality among patients with cancer. Nat Med. 2022 Apr;28(4):852-859. doi: 10.1038/s41591-022-01745-y. Epub 2022 Mar 28. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-022-01745-y
Henson KE, Brock R, Charnock J, Wickramasinghe B, Will O, Pitman A. Risk of Suicide After Cancer Diagnosis in England. JAMA Psychiatry. 2019 Jan 1;76(1):51-60. doi: 10.1001/jamapsychiatry.2018.3181
McFarland DC, Walsh L, Napolitano S, Morita J, Jaiswal R. Suicide in Patients With Cancer: Identifying the Risk Factors. Oncology (Williston Park). 2019 Jun 19;33(6):221-6. PMID: 31219606.
Osazuwa-Peters N, Simpson MC, Zhao L, Boakye EA, Olomukoro SI, Deshields T, Loux TM, Varvares MA, Schootman M. Suicide risk among cancer survivors: Head and neck versus other cancers. Cancer. 2018 Oct 15;124(20):4072-4079. doi: 10.1002/cncr.31675.
Pitman A, Suleman S, Hyde N, Hodgkiss A (2018) BMJ Clinical Updates: Depression and anxiety in patients with cancer BMJ 361:k1415 doi: 10.1136/bmj.k1415 https://www.bmj.com/content/361/bmj.k1415
Pitman A, Suleman S, Hyde N, Hodgkiss A (2018) BMJ 10 Minute Consultation Exploring low mood in a person with cancer BMJ;361:k1488 doi: 10.1136/bmj.k1488 https://www.bmj.com/content/361/bmj.k1488 (with 2018 BMJ podcast – Dr Alexandra Pitman and Dr Andrew Hodgkiss interviewed by BMJ Editor Dr Kate Adlington: https://soundcloud.com/bmjpodcasts/the-complexities-of-depression-in-cancer )
Wang SM, Chang JC, Weng SC, Yeh MK, Lee CS. Risk of suicide within 1 year of cancer diagnosis. Int J Cancer. 2018 May 15;142(10):1986-1993. doi: 10.1002/ijc.31224. Epub 2018 Jan 3. PMID: 29250783.
Zaorsky NG, Zhang Y, Tuanquin L, Bluethmann SM, Park HS, Chinchilli VM. Suicide among cancer patients. Nat Commun. 2019 Jan 14;10(1):207. doi: 10.1038/s41467-018-08170-1.
If you would like further information please contact: Dr Neethu Mohan, c/o The GRID Council, India globalengagement2024@gmail.com or Dr Alexandra Pitman, UCL Division of Psychiatry (a.pitman [at] ucl.ac.uk)