Cumulative postmarketing surveillance data have shown the rates of lymphoma and lung cancer among rheumatoid arthritis patients treated with abatacept are not higher than those among patients treated with conventional disease-modifying drugs.
Researchers compared cancer rates among more than 4,000 patients treated with abatacept (Orencia) with those in a reference population of about 94,000 rheumatoid arthritis (RA) patients treated with nonbiologic disease-modifying antirheumatic drugs (DMARDs), and with rates in the general population, Dr. Diane Lacaille reported at the annual meeting of the Canadian Rheumatology Association.
Published literature suggests the overall incidence of certain malignancies like lymphoma and lung cancer is increased in RA patients. The initial double-blind studies of abatacept also suggest an increase in malignancies, particularly lung cancer, among patients receiving the active treatment. Bristol-Myers Squibb Co., maker of abatacept, sponsored the postmarketing surveillance study. The analysis included safety data from two phase II RA trials and five phase III studies, as well as the cumulative abatacept experience of a total of 4,134 patients representing approximately 8,400 person-years of exposure, according to Dr. Lacaille of the University of British Columbia, Vancouver.
Six cohorts containing approximately 94,000 DMARD-treated patients from across the world were used as a reference population, she said during a poster presentation. Dr. Lacaille and her colleagues derived rates of malignancy in the U.S. general population from the National Cancer Institute's Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER) database.
http://www.rheumatologynews.com/article/S1541-9800(08)70236-9/fulltext
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