Tamoxifen usage correlates with increased risk of Parkinson’s disease in older women with breast cancer: a case–control study in Taiwan

Abstract

Background and objectives

Little is known about the association between tamoxifen usage and risk of Parkinson's disease in women with breast cancer. The present study aimed to evaluate the association between tamoxifen usage and Parkinson's disease in older women with breast cancer in Taiwan.

Methods

We conducted a retrospective nationwide case–control study using the database of the Taiwan National Health Insurance Program. In total, 293 female subjects with breast cancer, aged 65 years and above, who were newly diagnosed with Parkinson's disease between 2000 and 2011 were included. Additionally, 1053 female subjects with breast cancer aged 65 years and above without Parkinson's disease were randomly selected as controls. Both cases and controls were matched for age and comorbidities. Ever use of tamoxifen was defined as subjects who had at least a prescription for tamoxifen before the index date, whereas never use of tamoxifen was defined as those who never had a prescription for tamoxifen before the index date. We used the unconditional logistic regression model to calculate the odds ratio (OR) and 95% confidence interval (CI) for the association between tamoxifen usage and risk of Parkinson's disease.

Results

After adjusting for confounding variables, the adjusted OR of Parkinson's disease was 3.32 for subjects with ever use of tamoxifen (95% CI, 2.50–4.43), compared with nonusers. Further analysis showed that the adjusted ORs of Parkinson's disease were 3.21 (95% CI, 2.29–4.49), 3.95 (95% CI, 2.77–5.64), and 11.4 (95% CI, 2.63–49.7) for subjects with < 2, 2–6, and ≥ 6 years of cumulative tamoxifen usage, respectively, when compared with nonusers.

Conclusions

Tamoxifen usage was associated with a 3.32-fold increase in the likelihood of having Parkinson's disease among older women with breast cancer in Taiwan.

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