TY - JOUR PY - 2007// TI - Suicide in dermatology, is it really unusual? JO - Giornale italiano di dermatologia e venereologia A1 - Pelfini, C. SP - 703 EP - 710 VL - 142 IS - 6 N2 - When asked "Have you ever thought of committing suicide?" 7.2% of people with psoriasis and 5.6% of people with acne say they have, according to a recent research by Dehen et al. who also say that "The prevalence of depressive symptoms among patients seen at a hospital dermatology department was 23%", nearly the same percentage as that of people with cancer. Depression is a well-known suicide-predisposing factor, and quite recently, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has examined an important group of antidepressants as likely to be responsible for an increase in the risk of causing depression, suicide ideation or attempted suicide. In addition to these, there are risks, suspected or proven, connected with the use of drugs for dermatological treatment, such as antimalarial agents, corticosteroids, gabapentin and, of course, isotretinoin. Isotretinoin is the fifth most common drug, which has been reported to be associated with depression and the tenth with suicide by Adverse Event Reporting System (AERS) USA. This, of course, is not sufficient to prove direct responsibility and there is no formal epidemiological evidence, from either treatment cohort studies or large-scale population studies, for an association between isotretinoin use and depression and suicide. There is, however, case report evidence that isotretinoin is associated with the development of depression and suicide ideation and attempt and the possibility of a relatively rare idiosyncratic adverse effect remains.

Language: en

LA - en SN - 0392-0488 UR - http://dx.doi.org/ ID - ref1 ER -