Cancer Risk in Patients with Graves' Disease: A Nationwide Cohort Study

Abstract

Background: The possibility of an association of Graves' disease (GD) with subsequent cancers has been previously reported. Methods: Our study used the Taiwanese National Health Insurance Research Database (NHIRD), which identified 5025 newly diagnosed GD patients from 1997 to 2010, and 20,100 frequency matched non-GD patients. The risk of developing cancer for GD patients was measured using the Cox proportional hazard model. Results: The incidence of developing cancer in the GD cohort was 4.92 per 1000 person-years and was 1.37-fold higher than in the comparison cohort (pConclusions: GD patients have a higher risk of cancer, particularly thyroid and breast cancer sequent within six and three years respectively. Strategies for preventing thyroid and breast cancer are proposed.