Major depression but not minor to intermediate depression correlates with unfavorable prognosis in surgical colorectal cancer patients underwent adjuvant chemotherapy

ABSTRACT

This study aimed to investigate the correlation of anxiety/depression with clinicopathological features, and the association of anxiety/depression degrees with overall survival (OS) in surgical colorectal cancer (CRC) patients. Three hundred and eighty-one surgical CRC patients were consecutively enrolled and underwent adjuvant chemotherapy accordingly. Anxiety and depression were assessed by the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HADS). Patients with no, minor, intermediate and major anxiety were 249 (65.4%), 79 (20.7%), 37 (9.7%) and 16 (4.2%), respectively, and patients with no, minor, intermediate and major depression were 231 (60.6%), 73 (19.2%), 44 (11.5%) and 33 (8.7%), respectively. Younger age, increased the pathological grade, elevated tumor, node and metastasis (TNM) stage, as well as higher education correlated with raised HADS-A score, while younger age, drinking history, increased pathological grade, elevated TNM stage and higher education associated with raised HADS-D score. There was no difference in OS among CRC patients with no anxiety, minor anxiety, intermediate anxiety and major anxiety. And CRC patients with major depression were of worse OS compared to those with no depression, minor depression or intermediate depression. Younger age, higher pathological grade, TNM stage and education associates with anxiety and depression, and major depression is negatively correlated with OS in surgical CRC patients underwent adjuvant chemotherapy.

KEYWORDS:

• Colorectal cancer
• major depression
• major anxiety

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.