Trends in suicide mortality among prostate cancer survivors in the United States, 1975–2019

Suicide was an important cause of death in prostate cancer. This study intended to investigate trends in suicide mortality among prostate cancer (PCa) survivors from 1975 to 2019 in the United States.

We identified PCa survivors from the Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER) program from January 1975 to December 2019. Standardized mortality rate (SMR) was calculated d to assess the relative risk of suicide in PCa survivors compared with the general men population. Poisson regression model was performed to test for trend of SMRs. The cumulative mortality rate of suicide was calculated to assess the clinical burden of suicide mortality.

7108 (0.2%) cases were death from suicide cause, and 2,308,923(65.04%%) cases recorded as dying from non-suicidal causes. Overall, a slightly higher suicide mortality rate among PCa survivors was observed compared with general male population (SMR: 1.15, 95%CI: 1.09–1.2). The suicide mortality rate declined significantly relative to the general population by the calendar year of diagnosis, from an SMR of 1.74(95%CI: 1.17–2.51) in 1975–1979 to 0.99(0.89–1.1) in 2015–2019 (Ptrend < 0.001). PCa survivors with aged over 84 years, black and other races, registered in registrations (including Utah, New Mexico, and Hawaii) failed to observe a decrease in suicide mortality (Ptrend > 0.05). The cumulative suicide mortality during 1975–1994 was distinctly higher than in 1995–2019(P < 0.001).

The trend in suicide mortality declined significantly from 1975 to 2019 among PCa survivors compared with the general male population in the United States. Notably, part of PCa survivors had no improvement in suicide mortality, and additional studies in the future were needed to explore it.