Hormonal contraception and the risk of severe asthma exacerbation: 17-year population-based cohort study

Bright I Nwaru* (Corresponding Author), Holly Tibble, Syed A Shah, Rebecca Pillinger, Susannah Mclean, Dermot Ryan, Hilary O D Critchley, David Price, Catherine M. Hawrylowicz, Colin R. Simpson, Ireneous N. Soyiri, Francis Appiagyei, Aziz Sheikh

*Corresponding author for this work

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Abstract

Background:
Longitudinal studies investigating impact of exogenous sex steroids on clinical outcomes in women are lacking. We investigated the association between use of hormonal contraceptives and risk of severe asthma exacerbation in reproductive-age women with asthma.
Methods:
We used the Optimum Patient Care Research Database, a population-based longitudinal anonymised primary care database in the UK, to construct 17-year (1/1/2000–31/12/2016) retrospective cohort of reproductive-age
(16-45 years, N=83,084) women with asthma. Using READ codes, we defined use, subtypes, and duration of use of hormonal contraceptives. Severe asthma exacerbation was defined according to recommendation of the European Respiratory Society/American Thoracic Society as asthma-related hospitalisation, accident and emergency department visits due to asthma and/or oral corticosteroid prescriptions. Analyses were done using multilevel mixed-effects Poisson regression with QR decomposition.
Results:
The 17-year follow-up resulted in 456,803 person-years of follow-up time. At baseline, 34% of women were using any hormonal contraceptives, 25% combined (oestrogen/progestogen), and 9% progestogen-only contraceptives. Previous (incidence rate ratio [IRR] 0.94, 95%CI 0.92-0.97) and current (IRR 0.96, 95%CI 0.94-0.98) use of any, previous (IRR 0.92, 95%CI 0.87-0.97) and current use of combined (IRR 0.93, 95%CI 0.91-0.96), and longer duration of use (3-4 years: IRR 0.94; 95%CI 0.92-0.97; 5+ years: IRR 0.91; 95%CI 0.89-0.93) of hormonal contraceptives, but not progestogen-only contraceptives, were associated with reduced risk of severe asthma exacerbation compared to non-use.
Conclusion:
Use of hormonal contraceptives may reduce the risk of severe asthma exacerbation in reproductive-age women. Mechanistic studies investigating the biological basis for influence of hormonal contraceptives on clinical
outcomes of asthma in women are required.
Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)109-115
Number of pages7
JournalThorax
Volume76
Early online date23 Nov 2020
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 15 Jan 2021

Bibliographical note

FUNDING:
This work was supported by Asthma UK, grant number: AUK-IG-2016-346 and Health Data Research UK. We thank Optimum Patient Care (OPC) and Observational and Pragmatic Research Institute Pte Ltd (OPRI) for making the OPCRD database (www.opcrd.co.uk) available free of charge. BN acknowledges the support of Knut and Alice Wallenberg Foundation, the Wallenberg Centre for Molecular and Translational Medicine, University of Gothenburg, Sweden, and the VBG Group Herman Krefting Foundation on Asthma and Allergy. AS acknowledges support of Health Data Research UK (BREATHE).
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS:
We would like to thank Dr Lynn Morrice for administrative assistance and members of the Patient and Public Involvement group of the Asthma UK Centre for Applied Research who helped shape this project during the grant application stage. We also thank Dr Susannah McLean who helped with selection of Read codes and design of strategy for determining start and end dates of pregnancies. We are grateful to Optimum Patient Care (OPC) and Observational and Pragmatic Research Institute Pte Ltd (OPRI) for making the OPCRD database (www.opcrd.co.uk) available free of charge. We also thank Derek Skinner of OPRI who contributed to the creation of the study data-cut, identification of READ codes and IMD Centiles.

Keywords

  • Asthma exacerbation
  • women
  • combined hormonal
  • oestrogen
  • progesterone
  • sex hormones
  • clinical epidemiology
  • asthma
  • asthma epidemiology
  • hormonal contraception
  • PROGESTERONE
  • LUNG-FUNCTION
  • REGULATORY T
  • CARE
  • WOMEN
  • UK
  • REPLACEMENT THERAPY
  • ESTROGEN
  • BODY-MASS INDEX
  • EPIDEMIOLOGY

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