Research article

Digoxin treatment is associated with an increased incidence of breast cancer: a population-based case-control study

Thomas P Ahern^1,2 , Timothy L Lash^1,2 , Henrik T Sørensen^1,2 and Lars Pedersen²

¹  Department of Clinical Epidemiology, Aarhus University Hospital, Olof Palmes Alle 43-45, 8200 Aarhus N, Denmark

²  Department of Epidemiology, Boston University School of Public Health, 715 Albany Street T3E, Boston, MA 02118, USA

author email corresponding author email

Breast Cancer Research 2008, 10:R102doi:10.1186/bcr2205

Published:	3 December 2008

Abstract

Introduction

Laboratory and epidemiologic studies have suggested a modifying effect of cardiac glycosides (for example, digoxin and digitoxin) on cancer risk. We explored the association between digoxin treatment and invasive breast cancer incidence among postmenopausal Danish women.

Methods

We used Danish registries to identify 5,565 postmenopausal women diagnosed with incident invasive breast carcinoma between 1 January 1991 and 31 December 2007, and 55,650 matched population controls. Cardiac glycoside prescriptions were ascertained from county prescription registries. All subjects had at least 2 years of recorded prescription drug and medical history data. We estimated the odds ratio associating digoxin use with breast cancer in conditional logistic regression models adjusted for age, county of residence, and use of anticoagulants, non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs), aspirin, and hormone replacement therapy. We also explored the impact of confounding by indication and detection bias.

Results

Digoxin was the sole cardiac glycoside prescribed to subjects during the study period. There were 324 breast cancer cases (5.8%) and 2,546 controls (4.6%) with a history of digoxin use at least 1 year before their index date (adjusted odds ratio (OR): 1.30; 95% confidence interval: 1.14 to 1.48). The breast cancer OR increased modestly with increasing duration of digoxin exposure (adjusted OR for 7 to 18 years of digoxin use: 1.39; 95% confidence interval: 1.10 to 1.74). The association was robust to adjustment for age, receipt of hormone replacement therapy, coprescribed drugs, and confounding by indication. A comparison of screening mammography rates between cases and controls showed no evidence of detection bias.

Conclusions

Our results suggest that digoxin treatment increases the risk of invasive breast cancer among postmenopausal women.