Antihypertensives show no association with pancreatic cancer risk in chronic pancreatitis

Takeaway

• Antihypertensive medications show no association with pancreatic cancer risk in patients with chronic pancreatitis.

Why this matters

• Some studies had suggested that antihypertensives might act as anticancer agents, but these results indicate otherwise.

Key results

• 26.4% of patients had been taking at least 1 antihypertensive at baseline.
• Although the authors found differential risks with different antihypertensives (e.g., reduced risk with aldosterone receptor antagonists, increased risk with calcium channel blockers), they say the estimates are imprecise (wide 95% CIs).
• They conclude that they found no measurable associations of these medications and pancreatic cancer risk in these patients during a total of 60,365 person-years of follow-up.

Study design

• National registry study, Denmark, covering data from 1996 to 2012 for 8311 patients diagnosed with chronic pancreatitis, measured against antihypertensive drug use.
• Funding: Danish Cancer Society, others.

Limitations

• Confounding by indication is possible, given the high rate of comorbidities in this population.
• Pancreatic cancer was relatively rare (n=153).