TUESDAY, Oct. 30, 2018 (HealthDay News) -- The use of angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitors (ACEIs) is associated with an increased risk for lung cancer compared with angiotensin receptor blockers, according to a study published online Oct. 24 in the BMJ.
Blánaid M. Hicks, Ph.D., from Jewish General Hospital in Montreal, and colleagues conducted a population-based cohort study involving 992,061 patients newly treated with antihypertensive drugs to examine whether use of ACEIs versus angiotensin receptor blockers was correlated with the risk for lung cancer.
The researchers identified 7,952 incident lung cancer events during a mean follow-up of 6.4 years. Compared with the use of angiotensin receptor blockers, ACEI use was correlated with an increased risk for lung cancer (incidence rate, 1.6 versus 1.2 per 1,000 person-years; hazard ratio, 1.14). With longer duration of use, hazard ratios gradually increased, with an association evident after five years of use and peaking after more than 10 years (hazard ratios, 1.22 and 1.31, respectively). The findings were similar for time since initiation.
"Although the magnitudes of the observed estimates are modest, these small relative effects could translate into large absolute numbers of patients at risk for lung cancer, so these findings need to be replicated in other settings," the authors write.
One author disclosed ties to the pharmaceutical industry.
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