Cardwell, Chris R. http://orcid.org/0000-0002-2689-4335
Ranger, Tom A.
Labeit, Alexander M.
Coupland, Carol A. C. http://orcid.org/0000-0002-2327-3306
Hicks, Blánaid
Hughes, Carmel
McMenamin, Úna
Mei, Xue W.
Murchie, Peter http://orcid.org/0000-0001-9968-5991
Hippisley-Cox, Julia http://orcid.org/0000-0002-2479-7283
Funding for this research was provided by:
Cancer Research UK (C37316/A29656)
Article History
Received: 21 February 2024
Revised: 11 June 2024
Accepted: 14 June 2024
First Online: 24 June 2024
Competing interests
: JHC is an unpaid director of QResearch, a not-for-profit organisation which is a partnership between the University of Oxford and EMIS Health who supply the QResearch database used for this work. JHC has a 50% shareholding in ClinRisk Ltd, co-owning it with her husband, who is a director. As a shareholder and spouse of a director she has a financial and family interest in the ongoing and future success of the company. The company licences software both to the private sector and to NHS bodies or bodies that provide services to the NHS (through GP electronic health record providers, pharmacies, hospital providers and other NHS providers). This software implements algorithms (outside the scope of this research) developed from access to the QResearch database during her time at the University of Nottingham. The other authors have declared no competing interests.
: Approval for analysis of the Welsh data has been obtained from the SAIL Databank Information Governance Review Panel (Reference: 0965) and approval for the analysis of the Scottish data has been obtained from the Public Benefit and Privacy Panel for Health and Social Care (Reference: 2021–0014). In both Scotland and Wales only de-identified data was used and therefore written informed consent was not obtained. Approval for the analysis of the English data was obtained from the QResearch scientific committee (Project ref: OX24, title ‘Use of hormone replacement therapy and survival from cancer’). Ethical approval for the QResearch database is obtained annually from East Midlands—Derby Research Ethics Committee (Ref: 18/EM/0400).