Psychotropic medication use and risk of hormone-related cancers: the New York University Women's Health Study

Background The use of psychotropic medications may increase the risk of hor mone-related cancers in females through increased gonadotropin secretion, b ut the data from epidemiologic studies are limited to evaluate the hypothes is. Methods The association between the use of psychotropic medications and can cer incidence was studied in a prospective cohort study that involves 15 27 0 women who participated in mammographic screening. The relative risks (RR) and 95 per cent confidence intervals (Cls) for cancer associated with the use of psychotropic medications were estimated by the Cox's proportional ha zard model. Results During an average of 7.3 years of follow-up, 1130 incident cases of cancer were identified, including 566 breast, 67 endometrial and 47 ovaria n cancers, The use of any type of psychotropic medication at baseline was a ssociated with increased risks of breast [relative risk (RR) = 1.39, 95 per cent CI 1.11-1.74], endometrial (RR=1.71; 95 per cent Ct 0.93-3.14) and ov arian (RR = 1.48, 95 per cent CI 0.69-3.16) cancers, whereas no increase in risk was observed for other cancers (RR = 1.06). When the subjects were di vided by menopausal status at baseline, premenopausal women tended to have higher risk of all hormone-related cancers (RR = 1.73, 95 per cent CI 1.27- 2.35) than postmenopausal women (RR = 1.23, 95 per cent CI 0.94-1.62). The magnitude of the RR associated with the use of these medications did not ch ange by length of follow-up. Analysis by type of medication did not find th at the association was limited to specific types. Conclusion The observed association needs to be confirmed in further studie s based on more detailed medication history.