Abatacept and rituximab increase cancer risk in patients with RA.

A retrospective US study published in JAMA Network Open found that the initiation of abatacept or rituximab increases the risk of cancer in patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA). The study, which used administrative claims data from US Merative Marketscan Research Databases, included 25,305 adults aged 18-64 with RA. The risk of incident cancer was significantly greater after initiation of rituximab and abatacept compared to TNF inhibitors, according to multivariate Cox proportional hazards regression analysis. The study concluded that new rituximab and abatacept initiators demonstrated higher incidence rates and statistically significantly increased risks of incident cancers compared with TNF inhibitor initiators in the first 2 years after biologic or targeted synthetic DMARD initiation. [Extracted from the article]

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