Purpose

Prior studies have reported differing results regarding the association between endocrine therapy (ET) in the treatment of breast cancer and dementia risk. However, existing findings may be limited by common sources of bias and confounding. Here we investigate the association of ET utilized in the definitive setting to treat non-metastatic breast cancer with dementia risk accounting for multiple potential sources of bias and confounding.

Patients and methods

We conducted a retrospective study in SEER-Medicare of women aged ≥ 66 years with non-metastatic breast cancer. We examined the risk of all-cause dementia among ET users versus non-ET users using multivariable regression models, accounting for the competing risk of death, and using a start of the follow-up period as 12-months following breast cancer diagnosis for both groups to avoid immortal time bias.

Results

Among 25,777 individuals there were 2,869 incident dementia cases. We found a statistically significantly decreased risk of any dementia among ET users in unadjusted and adjusted models that completely attenuated when accounting for the competing risk of death (hazard ratio, 0.98; 95% confidence interval, 0.90-1.07).

Conclusion

When accounting for common sources of bias and confounding we did not find evidence to support an association between ET in the definitive treatment of non-metastatic breast cancer and dementia risk. These results suggest that ET may not be associated with dementia risk.