Women at a Dangerous Intersection: Diagnosis and Treatment of Depression and Related Disorders in Patients with Breast Cancer

In the popular culture of illness and treatment, breast cancer holds a strange sort of popularity. From the proliferation of pink-ribboned events, to Race for the Cure, to wig-removing protests on the hit TV show Sex and the City, the light of our collective attention seems to shine on women with breast cancer. A variety of psychiatric disorders have also entered popular consciousness, with ideas about diagnosis and treatment of individuals with obsessive compulsive disorder and substance-use problems on reality TV, nightly advertisements for antidepressants, and the revealing tales of celebrity mental illness. Despite all this attention, evidence-based options for diagnosis and treatment of psychiatric disorders in women with breast cancer remain scarce and inconclusive. Yet there is a growing body of evidence that depression, anxiety, and insomnia, when they occur concomitantly with breast cancer, are