Journal of Neuro-Oncology

, Volume 129, Issue 1, pp 179–187 | Cite as

Antidepressant use and risk of central nervous system metastasis

  • Megan M. Herr
  • Nimish A. Mohile
  • Edwin van Wijngaarden
  • Edward B. Brown
  • David Q. Rich
Clinical Study
First Online:
Received:
Accepted:

Abstract

Selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs), a class of antidepressants, were found to increase central nervous system (CNS) metastasis in mice. Our study investigated in humans whether antidepressants, and specifically SSRIs, increased the relative odds of CNS metastasis. We identified 189 cases of CNS metastasis amongst breast cancer, melanoma, and non-Hodgkin lymphoma subjects who were diagnosed with CNS metastasis or infiltration between January 1, 2005 and September 30, 2013 and 756 controls (patients without CNS metastasis or infiltration). Using logistic regression, we estimated the relative odds of CNS metastasis associated with antidepressant use adjusting for relevant covariates. The prevalence of antidepressants was 28.6 % in cases and 27.5 % in controls, whereas SSRIs were used in 16.9 % of cases and 17.3 % of controls. Among all patients, antidepressants were not associated with CNS metastasis or infiltration. No consistent patterns of association were observed in the analyses of other cancer subsets or exposure measures, with the possible exception of an increased risk of CNS metastasis associated with ‘any SSRI use’ among breast cancer patients (OR = 1.73, 95 % CI = 0.75, 4.04). We did not observe clear patterns of association, which may be due in part to the small sample size in many of our analyses.

Keywords

Central nervous system (CNS) metastasis Brain metastasis Antidepressant Selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI) Breast Cancer Melanoma 
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Notes

Compliance with ethical standards

Conflict of interest

Dr. Nimish Mohile receives consulting funding from Novocure. The authors have no further conflicts of interest to disclose.

Ethical approval

All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards. For this type of study formal consent was not required.

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Copyright information

© Springer Science+Business Media New York 2016

Authors and Affiliations

  • Megan M. Herr
    • 1
  • Nimish A. Mohile
    • 2
  • Edwin van Wijngaarden
    • 1
  • Edward B. Brown
    • 3
  • David Q. Rich
    • 1
  1. 1.Public Health SciencesUniversity of Rochester Medical CenterRochesterUSA
  2. 2.Department of NeurologyUniversity of Rochester Medical CenterRochesterUSA
  3. 3.Department of Neurobiology and AnatomyUniversity of Rochester Medical CenterRochesterUSA

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