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.