A new study from the University of Wisconsin Carbone Cancer Center highlights a disparity in cancer care: the depressed spouses of cancer patients are 33 percent less likely to receive adequate treatment for depression than are patients whose spouses don’t have cancer. Couples who live in rural areas are 72 percent less likely to receive recommended care for depression (including medication and talk therapy) than the depressed spouses of those without cancer.
How’s this for a paradox: The better cancer centers become at keeping patients alive, the more expensive cancer care becomes. This brutal tradeoff hits harder in rural areas, where the cancer burden is higher and the investigator and clinical trial representation is lower.
