In patients newly diagnosed with lymphoma or multiple myeloma, depressive symptoms were found to be common and also linked with early death, stated a Psycho-Oncology study.

The study included 255 patients, of whom 83 had depression. Over a median follow-up of approximately 3.5 years, 61 patients died. These included 30 patients in the "never depression" group, 6 patients in the "new-onset" group, 16 patients in the "remission" group, and 9 patients in the "persistent" group. These groups were based on depressive symptoms assessed before starting cancer treatment and one month later.

The risk of death was 3-times and 2-times higher in the "remission" and "persistent" groups, respectively, than in the "never depression" group; however, risk of death was not significantly greater in the "new-onset" group compared with the "never depression" group.