A new study by Israeli scientists has reported obesity treatment drugs from the glucagon-like peptide-1 receptor agonists (GLP-1RA) class do not increase the risk of pancreatic cancer.
Their research followed ‘concerns about these drugs because they’re prescribed to treat type 2 diabetes, a condition associated with pancreatic cancer’, noted medicalnewstoday.com.
In the study published in the journal JAMA, researchers at Tel Aviv’s Sheba Medical Center (Israel’s largest hospital) analysed a wide population of people with type 2 diabetes and reported GLP-1RA drugs ‘do not increase the risk of pancreatic cancer compared to basal insulin over a 7-year period’.
They emphasised this is an important finding as type 2 diabetes is associated with a higher risk of most cancers.
Lead author Dr Rachel Dankner noted that because her own earlier research showed a strong correlation between type 2 diabetes and most cancers, particularly liver and pancreatic cancer, it was important to know if drugs commonly used to treat type 2 diabetes – like those in the GLP-1RA class – added to the cancer risks.
Because the GLP-1RA class is relatively new, researchers don’t have decades of data to draw from; however Dankner’s team analysed a large population of nearly half a million adults with type 2 diabetes, with a follow-up period of 7 years.
She summed up: ‘We were happy to find no association between these very important medications and a very aggressive cancer that is causing a lot of suffering and a very high mortality rate.
‘We were also relieved to find this association persisted when we accounted for past history of pancreatitis, which is an important risk factor for pancreatic cancer.’
She added this finding was particularly important ‘because physicians often avoid prescribing GLP-1RAs to people with a history of pancreatitis’.
