Prior studies have only considered the association between static marital status and cancer-specific outcomes. We aim to measure the effect of recent divorce on cancer-specific outcomes.
There were 83,804 patients with 2 malignancies, diagnosed 12 to 60 months apart, from 1973-2006 from the Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results database. Patients were identified as newly divorced if married at their first diagnosis and single/divorced at their second. Multivariable logistic regression and competing-risks regression were used to analyze the association of becoming newly divorced or newly married with cancer-specific outcomes from the second malignancy, including advanced diagnosis (T4 or N1 or M1), receipt of treatment, and cancer-specific survival.
Four percent became newly divorced and 3.4% became newly married. Compared with long-term married, newly divorced patients were most likely to be diagnosed with advanced disease (adjusted odds ratio [AOR] 1.31; 95% confidence interval [CI], 1.19-1.43), followed by long-term divorced (AOR 1.18; 95% CI, 1.11-1.25), and were least likely to receive curative treatment (AOR 0.74; 95% CI, 0.67-0.81). Newly divorced patients had the worst cancer-specific survival (adjusted hazard ratio [AHR] 1.17; 95% CI, 1.05-1.30, P = .005), followed by long-term divorced (AHR 1.08; 95% CI, 1.01-1.16, P = .032), while newly married patients had similar cancer-specific survival to long-term married (AHR 0.96; 95% CI, 0.85-1.08, P = .46).
Recent divorce, which represents an acute disruption of a patient's social support network, was associated with the worst cancer outcomes, followed by long-term divorce. Clinicians should consider recent divorce as a risk factor for worse cancer outcomes, and encourage appropriate screening, treatment, and access to social and financial supports for recently divorced patients.
This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 16. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 13 February 2026.
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