ArticleInternational journal of epidemiology2024
Use of an emulated trial to investigate the association between use of nitrogen-based bisphosphonates and risk of epithelial ovarian cancer.
Article in International journal of epidemiology, 2024. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 1 paper.
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
1 citing paper in PubMed.
- Nitrogen-Based Bisphosphonate Use and Risk of Cancer in Women Aged 50 Years and Older: A National Data Linkage Study.International journal of cancer · 2026Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
13 authors.
Funding
Abstract
backgroundEpithelial ovarian cancer (EOC) is the eighth most common cancer in women, with poor survival outcomes. Observational evidence suggests that nitrogen-based bisphosphonate (NBB) use may be associated with reduced risk of EOC, particularly the endometrioid and serous histotypes; however, confounding by indication is a concern. An alternative approach to investigate the chemo-preventive potential of NBBs is to emulate a target trial by identifying all women who initiate use of NBBs and investigate the risk of EOC for continued users compared with discontinued users.
methodsUsing population-based linked data, we identified all Australian women aged over 50 years who first used NBBs over 2004-12. We used the year after first use to define treatment for each woman as either continued or discontinued use. We emulated randomization using stabilized inverse probability weights to balance the treatment groups using covariates including age, comorbidities and socioeconomic status. We followed women from treatment assignment until EOC diagnosis, death or 31 December 2013. We assessed the risk of EOC (overall and by histotype) using flexible parametric time-to-event models allowing for time-varying effects, and produced time-varying coefficients.
resultsOf the 313 383 women in the study, 472 were diagnosed with EOC during follow-up (261 serous EOC), with an average age at diagnosis of 72 years. Continued use of NBBs was associated with reduced risk of EOC overall (HR = 0.87, 95% CI: 0.69, 1.10), and serous EOC (HR = 0.71, 95% CI: 0.53, 0.96), compared with discontinued treatment, with estimates remaining constant over the 9-year follow-up.
conclusionsResults from our emulated trial suggest that in women who initiated NBB treatment, those who continued use had 13% and 29% lower hazards of being diagnosed with EOC overall and serous EOC, respectively, compared with women who discontinued use.
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.