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Use of postmenopausal hormone replacement therapy and risk of non-Hodgkin's lymphoma: a Danish population-based cohort study.

Nørgaard M, Poulsen AH, Pedersen L, Gregersen H, Friis S, Ewertz M, Johnsen HE, Sørensen HT

Department of Clinical Epidemiology, Aarhus University Hospital, Sdr. Skovvej 15, Postbox 365, DK-9100 Aalborg, Denmark. uxmeno@aas.nja.dk

Use of postmenopausal hormone replacement therapy (HRT) has been hypothesised to be associated with a reduced risk of non-Hodgkin's lymphoma (NHL), but the epidemiologic evidence is conflicting. To examine the risk of NHL in HRT users aged 40 and older, we conducted a cohort study in the County of North Jutland, Denmark (population 0.5 million) using data from population-based health registries for the period 1989-2002. We computed age-standardised NHL incidence rates and used Cox regression analysis to compute the relative risk (RR) and corresponding 95% confidence intervals (CI) of NHL among HRT users compared with non-users, adjusting for age and calendar period. The number of prescriptions redeemed (1, 2-4, 5-9, 10-19, or 20 or more prescriptions) was used as a proxy for duration of HRT. We identified 40 NHL cases among HRT users during 179 838 person-years of follow-up and 310 NHL cases among non-users during 1 247 302 person-years of follow-up. The age-standardised incidence rates of NHL were 25.7 per 100,000 among HRT users and 24.2 per 100,000 among non-users, yielding an adjusted RR of 0.99 (95% CI: 0.71-1.39). Our data did not support an association between HRT use and risk of NHL.

Published 3 May 2006 in Br J Cancer, 94(9): 1339-41.
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