One caveat: because several risk estimates reached higher confidence intervals, a clinically meaningful risk cannot be completely ruled out.
Reference1. Raaschou P, Söderling J, Turesson C, Askling J; ARTIS Study Group. Tumor necrosis factor inhibitors and cancer recurrence in Swedish patients with rheumatoid arthritis: a nationwide population-based cohort study. Ann Intern Med. 2018;169:291-299. doi: 10.7326/M17-2812.
Raaschou and fellow researchers in Sweden found no increased risk of cancer recurrence in patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) who were taking tumor necrosis factor inhibitors (TNFi).1 Scroll through the slides for the details of the study and the take-home points for physicians.
Matched and unmatched groups were used in the comparison with covariates studied including: RA subtype, use of DMARDs and prednisolone, RA disease activity at the start of TNFi treatment, number of days in hospital care, and number of prescribed medications in the 2 years before the start of follow-up.
TNFi, tumor necrosis factor inhibitors.
In the unmatched analysis, there were no statistically significant differences in hazard ratios between patients taking TNFi drugs who started these drugs at any interval following cancer diagnosis.
As always, clear communication and patient education are important in conveying the concept of risk and benefit, with each patient considered as an individual for specific treatments.
