Background: Depression is associated with breast cancer survivors in 22%. Although breast reconstruction (BR) is intended to provide psychological improvements such as reducing depression, literature is inconclusive and without long-term follow-up. The objective is to evaluate the impact of BR after breast cancer related mastectomy on the long-term depression risk and assess predictive factors for depression.Methods: Women who underwent a curative mastectomy between 1999 and 2009 were included. After a mean follow-up of more than 6 years after operation, the Beck Depression Inventory-13 (BDI-13) evaluated depressive symptoms. Multivariable regression analysis provided predictors for depression.Results: A total of 139 patients, 34 (24.5%) with and 105 (75.5%) without BR, were analyzed. Seventyseven patients (48.2%) were at high risk for mild (n=58), moderate (n=5) or severe (n=4) depression. There was a trend for slightly better BDI-13 outcomes for women who underwent BR (2 vs. 4; P=0.06). Living alone [odds ratio (OR): 2.16; P=0.04], low educational level (OR: 3.70; P<0.01) and adjuvant hormonal/ endocrine-therapy (OR: 2.36; P=0.02) were associated with an increased depression risk.Conclusions: BR has no clear influence on depressive symptoms on the long-term. Predictive factors should alert clinicians to assess depressive symptoms in specific breast cancer patients during follow-up. significantly increased risk of death from all causes within 5 years (hazard ratio: 3.59; 95% CI: 1.39-9.24). Another study found a hazard ratio for all-cause mortality in breast cancer patients of 1.27 (95% CI: 0.58-2.79) (7).After mastectomy, most women are given the option of either immediate (IBR) or delayed (DBR) breast reconstruction. Although these procedures are intended to provide cosmetic and psychological improvements, such as possible reduction of depression when compared to mastectomy without breast reconstruction (BR), contrasting reports have been written about these improvements. Multiple studies noted a significant decrease in depression in the reconstruction group (8-12), whereas in a number of other studies no psychological improvements were found in both IBR and DBR groups during follow-up periods of 6 months to 2 years after surgery (13,14). In view of the clinical possible consequences of BR, such as prolonged recovery time, risks of complications or the need of additional surgery, data should be available regarding the advantages of these surgical procedures including the influence on depression risk.Since the combined data of previous studies are not only inconclusive, but also lack long-term follow-up, more research is needed on the effect of post-mastectomy BR on the long-term risk and severity of depression. In order to optimize pre-operative education and patient selection for BR, we evaluated the impact of BR on depression at the long-term, using the 13-item BDI (BDI-13).
Methods
Study design and study populationA single-institute cohort study was performed by using hospital databases. Only women who und...