Healthcare

The rheumatologists may need to increase alertness when prescribing tumor necrosis factor (TNF) inhibitors in patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA).
This is because the researchers found that these drugs associated with increase risk of nonmelanoma skin cancer (NMSC).

Based on the results of recent observation study, compared with patients received nonbiologic Disease-Modifying Antirheumatic Drugs (DMARDs, unrelated drugs defined by their use in RA), those received TNF inhibitors associated with an increased risk of NMSC (12.7/100 patients-year vs 18.9/100 patients-year, respectively).
The risk even greater for elderly patients, male, have been used nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs or glucocorticoids, or had history of cancers.

This findings based on examination of 20,648 U.S. veterans with RA in the US Department of Veterans Affairs databases, by Dr. Wassila Amari, MD, a rheumatologist of IM/Div of Rheumatology, Washington University, St. Louis, MO, and colleagues.

The results just presented this month at the American College of Rheumatology Annual Scientific Meeting in Philadelphia, Pa, and reported in Rheumatology for August issue.

According to senior author of the study, Prabha Ranganathan MD, MD, assistant professor of medicine, division of rheumatology at the same institution, “Older patients with rheumatoid arthritis on anti-TNF therapy need to be watched closely for the development of skin cancer,” because their results “more robust for non-melanoma compared to melanoma skin cancer as we found the diagnosis codes for non-melanoma skin cancer to be more accurate in the administrative database compared to those for melanoma.”