Le suicide dans la maladie de Huntington : état actuel des connaissances

Abstract: Objectives: In 1872, George Huntington was the first to describe a genetic disease combining three types of disorder symptoms viz: motor, cognitive – evolving to cortical dementia and psychiatric. The purpose of this paper is to provide a selective review of the major issues and findings concerning suicide in Huntington''s disease. The aim was to understand why patients with Huntington''s disease have a higher suicide rate than those suffering from other neuro-developmental diseases. Materials and methods: The present review is based on a MEDLINE survey of the relevant literature. The terms used in the search were: “Suicide”, “predictive genetic testing”, “suicidal risk factors” and “suicide attempt” all in combination with “Huntington''s disease”. All abstracts were read and potentially relevant articles were examined in full. Various other important cross-references were included. Results: Most of the authors found that suicidal occurrence in Huntington patients was four times higher than that in the general population. No specific individual risk factor was found except a lack of offspring and of psychological support. This review also considered the patient''s attitude towards predictive genetic testing and its results. Reactions varied from psychological relief to paradoxical suicidal resurgence. Conclusion: This paper emphasizes the need of appropriate psychiatric care for Huntington''s patients in order to try to prevent suicidal behaviour. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]