Antihypertensive medication use and incident breast cancer in women

The purpose of this study was to evaluate whether antihypertensive medication use, including long-term use, is associated with increased breast cancer incidence in women. We studied 210,641 U.S. registered nurses participating in the Nurses' Health Study (NHS) and Nurses' Health Study II (NHS II). Information on antihypertensive medication use was collected on biennial questionnaires in both cohorts, and breast cancer cases were ascertained during this period. Multivariable-adjusted Cox proportional hazard models were used to estimate relative risks of invasive breast cancer over follow-up (1988-2012 in NHS, 1989-2011 in NHS II) across categories of overall antihypertensive medication use and use of specific classes (diuretics, beta blockers, calcium channel blockers, and angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitors). During follow-up, 10,012 cases of invasive breast cancer developed (6718 cases in NHS and 3294 in the NHS II). Overall, current use of any antihypertensive medication was not associated with breast cancer risk compared with past/never use in NHS (multivariable-adjusted relative risk = 1.00, 95 % CI = 0.95-1.06) or NHS II (multivariable-adjusted relative risk = 0.94, 95 % CI = 0.86-1.03). Furthermore, no specific class of antihypertensive medication was consistently associated with breast cancer risk. Results were similar when we considered hypertensive women only, and when we evaluated consistency and duration of medication use over time. Overall, antihypertensive medication use was largely unrelated to the risk of invasive breast cancer among women in the NHS cohorts.