Exploring the Causal Relationship Between Antidepressant Use and Lung Cancer Risk: A Mendelian Randomization Analysis

The dramatic increase in antidepressant prescribing over the past decade has sparked debate about the possible contribution of antidepressants to elevated cancer risk. In this study, we investigate whether antidepressant use has a causal relationship with lung cancer risk.

Genome-wide association study (GWAS) data for antidepressant use were acquired from the FinnGen Biobank, while GWAS data for overall lung cancer and specific histological subtypes were obtained from the UK Biobank (UKBB) and IEU databases. The causal impact was evaluated using inverse variance weighting (IVW), MR-Egger regression, and weighted median (WM) approaches. Multiple sensitivity analyses were conducted to validate the findings. Results are expressed as ORs and 95% CIs.

No causal relationship between antidepressant use and lung cancer risk was observed in the IVW (OR = 1.001, 95% CI = 0.999, p = 0.279), MR-Egger (OR = 1.002, 95% CI = 0.992, p = 0.700), and WM analyses (OR = 1.000, 95% CI: 0.997, p = 0.889). Similar results were found across lung cancer subtypes, including lung adenocarcinoma (LUAD) (OR = 1.197, 95% CI = 0.884-1.619, p = 0.247), lung squamous cell carcinoma (LUSC) (OR = 1.052, 95% CI = 0.822, p = 0.688), and small cell lung carcinoma (SCLC) (OR = 1.874, 95% CI = 0.737, p = 0.187). Sensitivity tests confirmed the robustness of these results.

This analysis indicates antidepressant use is not significantly associated with lung cancer risk.