A study published in the Annals of Internal Medicine found that treatment with tumor necrosis factor TNF inhibitors is not associated with increased risk for cancer recurrence in patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA); however, the researchers said, “meaningful risk increases could not be ruled out completely.”
Researchers conducted a population-based cohort study and used nationwide registries (including the Swedish National Patient Register, Swedish Prescribed Drug Register, Swedish Cancer Registry, Swedish Population Register, National Register of Education, and Swedish Cause of Death Register) to identify patients with RA who started TNF inhibitor treatment between 2001 and 2015 after being diagnosed with cancer (n=467). They matched them to a cohort with RA and a history of the same cancer who had never been treated with biologics (n=2,164).
Among those who received TNF inhibitors, 42 had cancer recurrences (9%), while 155 patients in the matched cohort had recurrences (7.2%; hazard ratio [HR] = 1.06; 95% CI, 0.73-1.54). “HRs were close to one in analyses of patient subsets matched on cancer stage or with similar time from index cancer diagnosis to the start of TNF inhibitor treatment, as well as in unmatched analyses,” the authors noted. “Several CIs had upper limits close to two.
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Source: Annals of Internal Medicine
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