Study Finds Increased Cancer Risk in US Patients With Asthma

US patients with asthma have an elevated likelihood of developing cancer, according to a study published in Cancer Medicine.

“Using electronic health record and claims data from the OneFlorida+ clinical research network, we found that patients with asthma were 1.36 times as likely to develop cancer compared to patients without asthma in multivariable analysis,” wrote corresponding author Yi Guo, PhD, of the University of Florida College of Medicine in Gainesville, Florida, and study coauthors.

The retrospective study included 90,021 adult patients with asthma and a matched cohort of 270,063 adult patients without asthma. Health record and claims data for the study spanned the years 2012 through 2020.

In addition to an increased cancer incidence overall in patients with asthma compared with patients without asthma, researchers reported hazard ratios of 1.60 in patients who did not use inhaled steroids and 1.11 in patients who did use inhaled steroids.

In patients without inhaled steroid use, cancer risk was elevated for nine of 13 cancer types: cancer of the prostate, lung, colorectum, blood, melanoma, corpus uteri, kidney, ovary, and cervix, according to the study. In patients with inhaled steroid use, risk was elevated for just two of 13 cancers: cancer of the lung and melanoma. Moreover, patients who used inhaled steroids were less likely to develop cancer of the corpus uteri compared with patients without asthma.

“Prior studies have shown a protective effect of inhaled steroid use on some cancers, potentially through reducing inflammation…,” researchers wrote. “More clinical and epidemiologic studies are needed to further examine the relationship between inhaled steroids and cancer risk, and explore the mechanism behind it.”

In addition, researchers advised the need for more studies with real-world data to investigate the causal mechanisms behind asthma and increased risk of cancer.

Reference

Guo Y, Bian J, Chen Z, et al. Cancer incidence after asthma diagnosis: evidence from a large clinical research network in the United States. Cancer Med. 2023 May;12(10):11871-11877. doi: 10.1002/cam4.5875