Association between captopril, other antihypertensive drugs and risk of prostate cancer

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Abstract
BACKGROUND There has been some debate on the existence of an association between hypertension, antihypertensive medications and cancer risk. METHODS We performed a nested case-control study to assess the association between the risk of prostate cancer and the use of the angiotensin converting enzyme (ACE)-inhibitor captopril, and other antihypertensive drugs. We used data from the General Practice Research Database in UK. RESULTS We found an incidence rate of prostate cancer of 1.61 per 1,000 person-years among male patients aged 50–79 years old. Patients with a history of benign prostatic hyperplasia and/or prostatism carried a two-fold greater risk of prostate cancer than those without such antecedents. None of the other studied co-morbidities were associated with prostate cancer. We found that users of captopril had a relative risk of 0.7 (95% CI: 0.4–1.2) to develope prostate cancer. None of the other studied individual ACE-inhibitors shared a similar effect with the one observed for captopril. CONCLUSIONS No clear association was apparent between the use of antihypertensive drugs and prostate cancer. However, specific focus on users of captopril showed a lower risk of subsequent prostate cancer. Further research is needed to explore this association.
Funding Information
  • AstraZeneca