Use of glucocorticoids and risk of breast cancer: a Danish population-based case-control study.

ABSTRACT:

Introduction

Glucocorticoids are widely prescribed drugs. In the human body, glucocorticoid is the main stress hormone and controls a variety of physiological and cellular processes, including metabolism and immune response. It belongs to the same steroid superfamily as estrogens, which are known to play a role in breast cancer. However, the effect of glucocorticoid use on the risk of breast cancer is not clear.

Methods

We conducted a case-control study using population-based medical databases from Northern Denmark (1.8 million inhabitants) to investigate the association between glucocorticoid prescriptions and breast cancer risk. The study included 9,488 incident breast cancer cases diagnosed between 1994 and 2008 and 94,876 population controls. We estimated the odds ratios

SUBMITTER: Sorensen GV 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3496139 | biostudies-literature | 2012 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature