Oral Contraceptive and Menopausal Hormone Therapy Use and Risk of Pituitary Adenoma: Cohort and Case-Control Analyses.

CONTEXT: No prospective epidemiologic studies have examined associations between use of oral contraceptives (OCs) or menopausal hormone therapy (MHT) and risk of pituitary adenoma in women.

OBJECTIVE

Our aim was to determine the association between use of OC and MHT and risk of pituitary adenoma in two separate datasets.

METHODS

We evaluated the association of OC/MHT with risk of pituitary adenoma in the Nurses' Health Study and Nurses' Health Study II by computing multivariable-adjusted hazard ratios (MVHR) of pituitary adenoma by OC/MHT use using Cox proportional hazards models. Simultaneously, we carried out a matched case-control study using an institutional data repository to compute multivariable-adjusted odds ratios (MVOR) of pituitary adenoma by OC/MHT use.

RESULTS

In the cohort analysis, during 6 668 019 person-years, 331 participants reported a diagnosis of pituitary adenoma. Compared to never-users, neither past (MVHR = 1.05; 95% CI, 0.80-1.36) nor current OC use (MVHR = 0.72; 95% CI, 0.40-1.32) was associated with risk. For MHT, compared to never-users, both past (MVHR = 2.00; 95% CI, 1.50-2.68) and current use (MVHR = 1.80; 95% CI, 1.27-2.55) were associated with pituitary adenoma risk, as was longer duration (MVHR = 2.06; 95% CI, 1.42-2.99 comparing more than 5 years of use to never, P trend = .002). Results were similar in lagged analyses, when stratified by body mass index, and among those with recent health care use. In the case-control analysis, we included 5469 cases. Risk of pituitary adenoma was increased with ever use of MHT (MVOR = 1.57; 95% CI, 1.35-1.83) and OC (MVOR = 1.27; 95% CI, 1.14-1.42) compared to never.

CONCLUSION

Compared to never use, current and past MHT use and longer duration of MHT use were positively associated with higher risk of pituitary adenoma in 2 independent data sets. OC use was not associated with risk in the prospective cohort analysis and was associated with only mildly increased risk in the case-control analysis.