ArticleBritish journal of clinical pharmacology2013
Use of benzodiazepines or benzodiazepine related drugs and the risk of cancer: a population-based case-control study.
Article in British journal of clinical pharmacology, 2013. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 27 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
27 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- Hypnotics and Risk of Cancer: A Meta-Analysis of Observational Studies.Medicina (Kaunas, Lithuania) · 2020Pooled it
- Benzodiazepines interfere with the efficacy of pembrolizumab-based cancer immunotherapy. Results of a nationwide cohort study including over 50,000 participants with advanced lung cancer.Oncoimmunology · 2025Article
- ACBP/DBI neutralization for the prevention and treatment of malignant and non-malignant liver diseases.Cell death & disease · 2025Review
- Association between Benzodiazepine and Dementia Risk in Treating Depression after Breast Cancer Diagnosis: A Nationwide Population-Based Cohort Study.Yonsei medical journal · 2025Article
- Benzodiazepines compromise the outcome of cancer immunotherapy.Oncoimmunology · 2024Article
- Lorazepam Stimulates IL6 Production and Is Associated with Poor Survival Outcomes in Pancreatic Cancer.Clinical cancer research : an official journal of the American Association for Cancer Research · 2023Article
- Trends, correlates, and disease patterns of sedative-hypnotic use among elderly persons in Taiwan.BMC psychiatry · 2022Article
- Does recreational drug use influence survival and morbidity associated with laryngeal cancer.Addiction & health · 2022Article
- Sleep, insomnia, and depression.Neuropsychopharmacology : official publication of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology · 2020Review
- Observational
- Association between Sedative-hypnotics and Subsequent Cancer in Patients with and without Insomnia: A 14-year Follow-up Study in Taiwan.Journal of Cancer · 2019Article
- Benzodiazepine-Associated Carcinogenesis: Focus on Lorazepam-Associated Cancer Biomarker Changes in Overweight Individuals.Psychiatry investigation · 2018Article
- Use of Hypnotics and Risk of Cancer: A Meta-Analysis of Observational Studies.Korean journal of family medicine · 2018Article
- Considerations for Pharmacoepidemiological Studies of Drug-Cancer Associations.Basic & clinical pharmacology & toxicology · 2018Review
- Benzodiazepine drug use and cancer risk: a dose-response meta analysis of prospective cohort studies.Oncotarget · 2017Article
- External adjustment of unmeasured confounders in a case-control study of benzodiazepine use and cancer risk.British journal of clinical pharmacology · 2017Article
- Increased risk for urological cancer associated with anxiety disorder: a retrospective cohort study.BMC urology · 2016Article
- Hypnotic drug risks of mortality, infection, depression, and cancer: but lack of benefit.F1000Research · 2016Review
- Confounding by alcohol use: benzodiazepines and risk of liver cancer.British journal of clinical pharmacology · 2015Article
- Association between hypnotics use and increased mortality: causation or confounding?European journal of clinical pharmacology · 2015Article
Corrections and comments
- Commented on by
- Commented on by
Authors and funding
4 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
aimStudies of the carcinogenic potential of benzodiazepines and related drugs (BZRD) have been equivocal. A recent study reported a 35% excess cancer risk among users of hypnotics, including benzodiazepines.
methodUsing Danish nationwide registers, we conducted a matched case-control study of the association between BZRD and cancer risk. During 1 January 2002 and 31 December 2009, we identified 152 510 cases with a first time cancer who were matched (1:8) by age and gender to 1,220,317 cancer-free controls. A new-user design was applied by excluding all subjects who had used anxiolytics, hypnotics or sedatives during the first 2 years of available prescription data (1995-6). Odds ratios (ORs) with 95% confidence intervals (CI) were estimated using conditional logistic regression, adjusting for potential confounders. In the primary analysis, long term use of BZRD was defined by a cumulative amount of ≥500 defined daily doses of BZRD within a period of 1 to 5 years prior to the index date.
resultsThe adjusted OR for cancer associated with BZRD use was 1.09 (95% CI 1.04, 1.14). ORs were close to unity for most cancer sites, except stomach 1.40 (95% CI 1.05, 1.88), oesophagus 1.43 (95% CI 1.01, 2.02), liver 1.81 (95% CI 1.18, 2.80), lung 1.38 (95% CI 1.23, 1.54), pancreas 1.35 (95% CI 1.02, 1.79) and kidney 1.39 (95% CI 1.01, 1.91). For tobacco-related cancers, the OR was 1.15 (95% CI 1.09, 1.22) and for the remaining cancer sites 1.01 (95% CI 0.94, 1.08). Sub-group analyses revealed only small differences between different levels of exposure or different patient subgroups.
conclusionBZRD use was not associated with an overall increase in cancer risk, except for what is likely explained by minor lifestyle confounding, e.g. smoking.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.