Low Alcohol Use Disorder Treatment Rates Seen in Cancer Survivors

One-year incidence of psychosocial therapy initiation was 12.6 percent, while incidence of medication initiation was 2.8 percent

By Elana Gotkine HealthDay Reporter

THURSDAY, May 29, 2025 (HealthDay News) — For U.S. adult cancer survivors with a new alcohol use disorder (AUD) diagnosis, the one-year cumulative incidence of AUD treatment initiation was 14.3 percent, according to a research letter published online May 27 in the Annals of Internal Medicine.

Anton L.V. Avanceña, Ph.D., from The University of Texas at Austin, and colleagues estimated the cumulative incidence of U.S. Food and Drug Administration-approved medications for AUDs (MAUDs) and initiation of psychosocial therapy among cancer survivors in a retrospective cohort study using Merative MarketScan claims data from January 2011 to December 2021. The sample was limited to cancer survivors with a new AUD diagnosis.

Data were included for 71,875 cancer survivors who received an AUD diagnosis. The researchers found that the one-year cumulative incidence of AUD treatment initiation was 14.3 percent. The one-year cumulative incidence of psychosocial therapy initiation was 12.6 percent, while the cumulative incidence of U.S. Food and Drug Administration-approved MAUD initiation was 2.8 percent. Within a year after AUD diagnosis, only 0.95 percent of cancer survivors received both FDA-approved MAUD and psychosocial therapy. Compared with male cancer survivors, female cancer survivors had a higher one-year cumulative incidence of AUD treatment initiation (18.2 versus 12.2 percent). Incidence was also higher for cancer survivors aged younger than 65 years versus those aged 65 years or older (17.2 versus 8.3 percent).

“Low rates of AUD treatment may be influenced by system-level factors like low provider knowledge about MAUDs as well as patient-level factors, including beliefs that AUD will resolve on its own and stigma associated with AUD,” the authors write.

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