How real is the risk of thyroid cancer from Semaglutide and other GLP-1 receptor antagonists?
Categories:
Semaglutide,
Side Effects
- Given the prior evidence and the results reported by Bezin et al. in this issue of Diabetes Care, it is possible that GLP-1 RAs cause a moderate relative increase in thyroid cancer, but detection bias cannot be ruled out as an alternative explanation. Thyroid cancer is a rare outcome, however, and the potential increase in absolute risk is very small.
- Clinicians and patients need to always balance the benefit and harm of treatments in light of their alternatives.
- In a population without specific risk factors for thyroid cancer, the benefits of GLP-1 RAs will largely outweigh the harm.
