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No Increase in Overall Cancer Rate Found Among Rheumatoid Arthritis Patients Treated With Biologic Therapies
By Bruce Sylvester
WASHINGTON, DC -- November 16, 2006 -- Treatment of rheumatoid arthritis (RA) with biologic therapy does not appear to increase patients' overall risk of cancers other than skin cancers, researchers reported at the American College of Rheumatology - Association of Rheumatology Health Professionals Annual Scientific Meeting (ACR-ARHP).
"Since biologic therapy can reduce immunity, we wanted to see if this led to an increase in malignancies," said lead investigator Frederick Wolfe, MD, project director, National Data Bank for Rheumatic Disease, Wichita, Kansas, in a presentation on November 14th. "We saw no overall risk in cancers which could be associated with biologic treatment of rheumatoid arthritis, with the exception of skin cancers."
Biologics agents included in the study were adalimumab, etanercept and infliximab.
Dr. Wolfe and colleagues studied data from a large U.S. registry of RA patients (1998-2005), including about 12,000 subjects, approximately half of whom had received biologic therapy. Those reporting new cases of non-melanotic skin cancer totaled 623, while 537 new cases were reported for other cancers.
The investigators compared this finding to data from the National Cancer Institute's Surveillance Epidemiology and End Results database, which monitors cancer cases in the general population.
They found an increased risk for new melanoma and non-melanotic skin cancer cases among RA patients exposed to biologic therapy. But there was no significant difference in the risks for all other cancers in RA patients exposed to biologic therapy.
"Even though follow-up is required to validate the findings, we can say at this point that the use of biologic therapy by RA patients is not associated with increased risks of lymphoma, lung cancer or other cancers," the researchers concluded.
The study received support from Amgen, Aventis, Bristol-Myers-Squibb and Centocor.
[Presentation title: The Association of New Cases of Cancer with Biologic Therapy. Abstract 1321]
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