Purpose Exposure of hydrochlorothiazide (HCTZ) has been linked to the increase of skin cancer in the Caucasian population, especially for the squamous cell carcinoma (SCC) but not for basal cell carcinoma (BCC). This study aimed to evaluate the risks of skin cancer between patients receiving HCTZ and those receiving other antihypertensives. Methods This retrospective cohort study was derived from the National Health Insurance Database in Taiwan. We enrolled patients aged 20 years and older who newly receiving antihypertensive medications between 2004 - 2015. We calculated the medication possession ratio (MPR) of the first two years of treatment for patient enrollment and treatment classification, in which patients with MPR above 80% were enrolled and patients were subsequently categorized into receiving HCTZ, other thiazide diuretics, non-thiazide diuretics, and non-diuretic antihypertensives. The Cox proportional hazards model was used to evaluate the risk of skin cancer, and further divided into SCC, and BCC. Results Our study enrolled 41,086, 27,402, 19,613, and 856,782 patients receiving HCTZ, other thiazide diuretics, non-thiazide diuretics, and non-diuretic antihypertensives, respectively. We found BCC risks were similar when comparing HCTZ with other thiazides (adjusted hazard ratio, 0.84; 95% CI: 0.54-1.33), non-thiazide diuretics (0.93; 0.51-1.67), and non-diuretic antihypertensives (0.91; 0.66-1.26). Higher SCC risk was observed in the HCTZ group, compared to other thiazide (1.24; 0.74-2.08), non-thiazide diuretics (1.32; 0.70- 2.51), and non-diuretic antihypertensives (1.23; 0.87-1.73), although the differences were not statistically significant. Conclusions We conclude that skin cancer need not be of major concern to physicians when prescribing antihypertensives for an Asian population.

Purpose Guidelines recommend low-molecular-weight heparins (LMWHs) for patients with cancer associated thrombosis. However, until recently, only dalteparin and tinzaparin were approved in the European Economic Area (EEA) for these patients. This study compares the benefit–risk profile of enoxaparin with dalteparin and tinzaparin, based on real-world evidence (RWE) for the extended treatment of deep vein thrombosis (DVT) and pulmonary embolism (PE), and prevention of recurrence in adult patients with active cancer. Methods A semi-quantitative structured benefit–risk assessment was conducted for the label-extension application of enoxaparin employing the following steps of the benefit–risk action team descriptive framework: define decision context; determine key benefit and risk outcomes; identify data sources; extract data; interpret results. Results The key benefits were defined as reduced all-cause mortality and VTE recurrence (including symptomatic DVT, fatal PE and non-fatal PE); the key risks were major and non-major bleeding of clinical significance. When compared with other EEA-approved LMWHs (dalteparin, tinzaparin), enoxaparin demonstrated a trend toward favourable effects for the reduction of VTE recurrence and all-cause mortality. There was a trend in favour of other LMWHs for major bleeding, and a trend in favour of enoxaparin for non-major bleeding with no evidence of significant difference between enoxaparin and the comparator groups. Conclusions The assessment using RWE demonstrated a favourable benefit–risk profile for enoxaparin similar to that of other EEA-approved LMWHs for the treatment of DVT and PE and the prevention of recurrence in patients with active cancer and thus supported the label-extension approval.