News: Drug treatment of hypertension does not affect cancer risk

The Pharmaceutical Journal Vol 267 No 7162 p251-255
25 August 2001

Drug treatment of hypertension does not affect cancer risk

An analysis of the Swedish trial in old patients with hypertension 2 (STOP-hypertension-2) has indicated that antihypertensive drugs neither increase nor decrease the risk of developing cancer.

Writing in The Lancet (2001;358:539), Professor Lars Lindholm from Umeå University, Sweden, and colleagues say they matched the frequency of cancer observed in the 6,614 patients (mean age 76 years) enrolled into the trial, with expected values taken from the Swedish Cancer Registry.

Following entry into the STOP-hypertension-2 study, patients were randomised into three groups and received either angiotensin converting enzyme inhibitors, calcium channel blockers or conventional treatment (b-blockers or diuretics) (PJ, 27 November 1999).

After an average follow-up period of five years, there was no significant deviation overall in cancer type or site from the expected number, nor was there any variation between the three treatment groups.

The researchers say: “The general message to the practising physician is that more attention should be given to getting the blood pressure down than to the risk of cancer.”

Professor Lindholm and colleagues comment that they undertook the analysis because some drugs used to treat hypertension had been linked with an increased risk of cancer, whereas others appeared to offer protection against the disease.

When 607 patients who had a history of cancer at baseline where excluded from the analyses, the outcome was essentially the same as that predicted from expected figures, they say.