ReviewSkin health and disease2026
Association between prescribed antidepressant medication and skin cancer (melanoma, basal cell carcinoma and cutaneous squamous cell carcinoma) risk: a systematic review and meta-analysis.
Review in Skin health and disease, 2026. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 1 paper.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
1 citing paper in PubMed.
- Skin on Drugs: Psychotropic Compounds in Cutaneous Biology.International journal of molecular sciences · 2026Review
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
7 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Background: Certain antidepressants act as photosensitizers and may affect skin cancer risk; however, no evidence synthesis has been conducted. With the rising global incidence of skin cancer and widespread antidepressant use, clarifying any potential association is essential for public health. Objectives: To assess the association between prescribed antidepressants and skin cancer (basal cell carcinoma, cutaneous squamous cell carcinoma and melanoma) risk. Methods: The protocol was registered on PROSPERO. MEDLINE and Embase were searched on 5 October 2025. Titles, abstracts and full texts were screened, and the methodologies appraised by two independent reviewers. The Mantel-Haenszel method (random-effects model) was applied to pool odds ratios (ORs), and the inverse variance method was used for rate ratios (RRs); heterogeneity was assessed using Results: Ten studies were included, five of which contributed to the meta-analysis. The association between antidepressant use and skin cancer risk was not statistically significant [RR 0.83, 95% confidence interval (CI) 0.60-1.16 ( Conclusions: No statistically significant association was found between antidepressant use and skin cancer risk. Further high-quality research considering important confounders such as skin type, skin cancer type, sun exposure-related behaviour and sufficient follow-up is needed to confirm these findings.
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.