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Prolonged use of human insulin increases breast cancer risk in Taiwanese women with type 2 diabetes

Overview of attention for article published in BMC Cancer, November 2015
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  • In the top 25% of all research outputs scored by Altmetric
  • High Attention Score compared to outputs of the same age (83rd percentile)
  • High Attention Score compared to outputs of the same age and source (92nd percentile)

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Title
Prolonged use of human insulin increases breast cancer risk in Taiwanese women with type 2 diabetes
Published in
BMC Cancer, November 2015
DOI 10.1186/s12885-015-1876-7
Pubmed ID
Authors

Chin-Hsiao Tseng

Abstract

Human insulin is commonly used to treat hyperglycemia in patients with diabetes, but its potential link with female breast cancer is under debate. This study investigated whether human insulin use might be associated with breast cancer risk in Taiwanese women with type 2 diabetes. The reimbursement databases of all Taiwanese diabetic patients from 1996 to 2009 were retrieved from the National Health Insurance. An entry date was set at 1 January 2004 and a total of 482,033 women with type 2 diabetes were followed up for breast cancer incidence until the end of 2009. Incidences for ever-users, never-users and subgroups of human insulin exposure (using tertile cutoffs of time since starting insulin, cumulative dose and cumulative duration of insulin) were calculated and the adjusted hazard ratios were estimated by Cox regression. The potential risk modification by concomitant treatment with metformin, statin and angiotensin converting enzyme inhibitor/angiotensin receptor blocker (ACEI/ARB) was also evaluated. There were 59,798 ever-users and 422,235 never-users of human insulin, with respective numbers of incident breast cancer of 559 (0.93 %) and 4,711 (1.12 %), and respective incidence of 207.9 and 215.1 per 100,000 person-years. The overall adjusted hazard ratio (95 % confidence interval) did not show a significant association with insulin [1.033 (0.936-1.139)]. However, patients in the third tertiles of dose-response parameters might show a significantly higher risk of breast cancer while compared to never-users: 1.185 (1.026-1.368), 1.260 (1.096-1.450) and 1.257 (1.094-1.446) for ≥67 months for time since starting insulin, ≥39,000 units for cumulative dose of insulin, and ≥21.8 months for cumulative duration of insulin, respectively. Additional analyses suggested that the breast cancer risk associated with human insulin use might be beneficially modified by concomitant use of metformin, statin and ACEI/ARB. This study discloses a significantly higher risk of breast cancer associated with prolonged use of human insulin. The increased risk of breast cancer associated with human insulin use may be modified by medications such as metformin, statin and ACEI/ARB.

X Demographics

X Demographics

The data shown below were collected from the profiles of 5 X users who shared this research output. Click here to find out more about how the information was compiled.
Mendeley readers

Mendeley readers

The data shown below were compiled from readership statistics for 36 Mendeley readers of this research output. Click here to see the associated Mendeley record.

Geographical breakdown

Country Count As %
Unknown 36 100%

Demographic breakdown

Readers by professional status Count As %
Student > Bachelor 5 14%
Student > Postgraduate 4 11%
Other 4 11%
Student > Ph. D. Student 3 8%
Student > Doctoral Student 2 6%
Other 6 17%
Unknown 12 33%
Readers by discipline Count As %
Medicine and Dentistry 14 39%
Pharmacology, Toxicology and Pharmaceutical Science 2 6%
Unspecified 1 3%
Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology 1 3%
Veterinary Science and Veterinary Medicine 1 3%
Other 4 11%
Unknown 13 36%
Attention Score in Context

Attention Score in Context

This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 10. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 11 January 2016.
All research outputs
#3,187,449
of 23,613,071 outputs
Outputs from BMC Cancer
#715
of 8,487 outputs
Outputs of similar age
#46,096
of 286,576 outputs
Outputs of similar age from BMC Cancer
#19
of 244 outputs
Altmetric has tracked 23,613,071 research outputs across all sources so far. Compared to these this one has done well and is in the 86th percentile: it's in the top 25% of all research outputs ever tracked by Altmetric.
So far Altmetric has tracked 8,487 research outputs from this source. They receive a mean Attention Score of 4.4. This one has done particularly well, scoring higher than 91% of its peers.
Older research outputs will score higher simply because they've had more time to accumulate mentions. To account for age we can compare this Altmetric Attention Score to the 286,576 tracked outputs that were published within six weeks on either side of this one in any source. This one has done well, scoring higher than 83% of its contemporaries.
We're also able to compare this research output to 244 others from the same source and published within six weeks on either side of this one. This one has done particularly well, scoring higher than 92% of its contemporaries.