LONDON: Long-tem use of certain widely prescribed blood pressure (BP) drugs may increase the risk of lung cancer, according to a study published on Thursday in The BMJ.
Risk for individuals is still low, but could translate into large numbers of patients, said researchers led by Professor Laurent Azoulay from the McGill University in Canada.
Use of angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitor drugs (ACEIs) to lower BP is associated with an increased risk of lung cancer compared with use of another group of blood pressure drugs called angiotensin receptor blockers (ARBs), researchers said.
ACEIs are widely prescribed, so these small relative effects could translate into large absolute numbers of patients at risk for lung cancer, they said.
ACEIs are effective drugs used to treat high blood pressure (hypertension). Evidence suggests that ACEIs may increase the risk of lung cancer through the build-up of protein-like chemicals called bradykinin and substance P in the lung, said researchers.
These chemicals have been found on lung cancer tissue, and bradykinin may directly stimulate the growth of lung cancer.
However, previous observational studies examining this association are limited and report inconsistent results.
To better understand this possible association, Azoulay analysed UK primary care records for nearly one million patients who started taking a new antihypertensive drug between 1995 and 2015. (AGENCIES)
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