Incidence and risk factors of hypothyroidism after treatment for early breast cancer : a population-based cohort study

Purpose An increased incidence of hypothyroidism among breast cancer survivors has been observed in earlier studies. The impact of the postoperative treatment modalities and their potential interplay on hypothyroidism development needs to be studied. Methods We conducted a population- and registry-based study using the Breast Cancer Data Base Sweden (BCBaSe) including females diagnosed with breast cancer between 2006 and 2012. In total, 21,268 female patients diagnosed with early breast cancer between 2006 and 2012, with no previous prescription of thyroid hormones and no malignant diagnosis during the last ten years before breast cancer diagnosis, were included in the final analysis. Results During the follow-up (median follow-up time 7.9 years), 1212 patients (5.7%) developed hypothyroidism at a median time of 3.45 years from the index date. No association of the systemic oncological treatment in terms of either chemotherapy or endocrine therapy and hypothyroidism development could be identified. A higher risk (HR 1.68;95% CI 1.42–1.99) of hypothyroidism identified among patients treated with radiation treatment of the regional lymph nodes whereas no increased risk in patients treated only with radiation therapy to the breast/chest wall was found (HR 1.01; 95% CI 0.86–1.19). The risk of hypothyroidism in the cohort treated with radiotherapy of the regional lymph nodes was present irrespective of the use of adjuvant chemotherapy treatment. Conclusions Based on the results of our study, the implementation of hypothyroidism surveillance among the breast cancer survivors treated with radiotherapy of the regional lymph nodes can be considered as reasonable in the follow-up program.