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Use of cardiac glycosides and risk of glioma

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Abstract

Cardiac glycosides induce apoptotic effects on glioma cells, but whether cardiac glycosides protect against risk for glioma is unknown. We therefore explored the relation between glycoside use and glioma risk using a large and validated database. We performed a case–control analysis using the Clinical Practice Research Datalink involving 2005 glioma cases diagnosed between 1995 and 2012 that were individually matched to 20,050 controls on age, gender, general practice, and number of years of active history in the database. Conditional logistic regression analysis was used to evaluate the association between cardiac glycosides and the risk of glioma adjusting for body mass index and smoking. We also examined use of common heart failure and arrhythmia medications to differentiate between a specific glycoside effect and a generic effect of treatment for congestive heart failure or arrhythmia. Cardiac glycoside use was inversely related to glioma incidence. After adjustment for congestive heart failure, arrhythmia, diabetes, and common medications used to treat those conditions, the OR of glioma was 0.47 (95 % CI 0.27–0.81, Bonferroni-corrected p value = 0.024) for use versus non-use of cardiac glycosides, based on 17 exposed cases. In contrast, no associations were noted for other medications used to treat congestive heart failure or arrhythmias. The OR of glioma in people with congestive heart failure was 0.65 (95 % CI 0.40–1.04), and for arrhythmia it was 1.01 (95 % CI 0.78–1.31). These data indicate that cardiac glycoside use is independently associated with reduced glioma risk.

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Acknowledgments

We thank Pascal Egger for technical support and programming and Simone Thomas for critical discussions regarding our manuscript. This work was supported by the German Research Foundation (to C.S. and M.F.L.).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Neurology and Wilhelm Sander-NeuroOncology Unit, Regensburg University Hospital, Franz-Josef-Strauss-Allee 11, 93053, Regensburg, Germany

    Corinna Seliger, Martin Uhl, Ulrich Bogdahn & Peter Hau

  2. Basel Pharmacoepidemiology Unit, Division of Clinical Pharmacy and Epidemiology, Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences, University of Basel, Basel, Switzerland

    Christoph R. Meier

  3. Boston Collaborative Drug Surveillance Program, Boston University School of Public Health, Boston University, Boston, USA

    Christoph R. Meier & Susan S. Jick

  4. Hospital Pharmacy, University Hospital Basel, Basel, Switzerland

    Christoph R. Meier

  5. Department of Epidemiology and Preventive Medicine, University of Regensburg, Regensburg, Germany

    M. F. Leitzmann

Authors
  1. Corinna Seliger
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  2. Christoph R. Meier
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Correspondence to Corinna Seliger.

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Conflicts of interest

This study was funded by the German Research Foundation (“Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft”, KFO-262-P10). The authors declare that they have no conflicts of interest. For this type of study formal consent is not required. This article does not contain any studies with animals performed by any of the authors. Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.

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Seliger, C., Meier, C.R., Jick, S.S. et al. Use of cardiac glycosides and risk of glioma. J Neurooncol 127, 321–328 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11060-015-2036-2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11060-015-2036-2

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