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Relationship between drugs for hypertension and lung cancer detected
The researchers found that hypertension drugs, used by millions of people around the world, can increase the risk of lung cancer.
Researchers at McGill University in Montreal have discovered in their current research that widely used blood pressure medications appear to increase the risk of lung cancer. The doctors published the results of their study in the English newspaper "The BMJ".
Lung cancer due to ACE inhibitors?
The so-called ACE inhibitors are drugs used especially for the treatment of hypertension and chronic heart failure. The investigation has now revealed that patients taking an ACE inhibitor are 14% more likely to develop cancer. The risk continued to increase longer than patients were taking these drugs. Those who took ACE inhibitors for five years had a 22% higher risk of lung cancer. The risk has even reached 31% after ten years. Scientists suspect that drugs cause an accumulation of bradykinin in the lungs, which then leads to cancer.
ACE inhibitors are prevalent
Ramipril is the most used ACE inhibitor, prescribed in 2017 only in England, more than 27 million times. Other common names are captopril, cilazapril and enalapri. In the UK, up to five million patients are prescribed ACE inhibitors. The drug is usually used for hypertension or after a heart attack. ACE inhibitors work by reducing the activity of the so-called angiotensin converting enzyme or ACE. By blocking this enzyme, blood vessels relax and expand, lowering blood pressure, experts say.
The researchers examined 992,000 subjects
The study, published in the BMJ, examined 992,000 adults who had been prescribed medications to regulate blood pressure between 1995 and 2015 in the UK. Patients participating in the study took one of two types of tablets, ACE inhibitors or angiotensin receptor blockers, each acting in a different manner.
Additional research is needed
Compared to patients taking angiotensin receptor antagonists, patients taking an ACE inhibitor were 14% more likely to have diagnosed lung cancer within six years. Experts are currently planning further long-term follow-up studies to study the impact of these drugs on the incidence of lung cancer. Given the potential side effects of antihypertensive medications, they should now be re-examined in other studies, particularly in patients who are exposed to drugs for longer, the researchers asked. (As)
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