medwireNews: A study of women with Type 2 diabetes in the UK Clinical Practice Research Datalink suggests that use of glucagon-like peptide (GLP)-1 analogues is unlikely to raise their risk of breast cancer – at least relative to the use of dipeptidylpeptidase (DPP)-4 inhibitors.
Among 44,984 women over an average 3.5 years of follow-up, the breast cancer rate did not differ significantly between those exposed to GLP-1 analogues and DPP-4 inhibitors, at 4.4 versus 3.4 per 1000 person–years.
Laurent Azoulay (McGill University, Montréal, Quebec, Canada) and team did find a significant increase in breast cancer diagnoses among women who had used GLP-1 analogues for a cumulative duration of between 1 and 3 years, but this was not present among those with more than 4 years of use.
“Although these atypical duration patterns are compatible with a possible tumour promoter effect, they are likely a result of increased detection”, write the researchers in The BMJ.
A transient detection bias is compatible with the possible effect on breast cancer risk seen in early randomised trials of GLP-1 analogues, but the lack of effect in trials with longer follow-up such as LEADER, they say.
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