Using biological disease-modifying antirheumatic medications (bDMARDs) in patients with a history of malignancy remained a difficult topic in rheumatology treatment due to worries regarding malignancy risks. For a study, researchers sought to look into physicians’ bDMARD preferences while treating patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) and spondyloarthritis (SpA) who had a history of cancer. The data for the cross-sectional research came from the TReasure database between December 2017 and January 2020. The biological disease-modifying antirheumatic medication preferences of 40 patients with RA and 25 patients with SpA with a history of cancer were studied.
Rituximab was the most often administered bDMARD, with 28 patients with RA receiving it (70% ). The duration between the diagnosis of cancer and the initiation of a bDMARD treatment was less than 60 months for 25 patients (62.5%), with a median gap of 43.5 months. The favored bDMARDs among SpA patients were secukinumab and etanercept, which were provided to 7 patients each (28%). The median delay between the diagnosis of malignancy and the initiation of bDMARDs was 97 months for 13 patients with SpA (52%). The reported bDMARD preferences might be connected to rituximab’s therapeutic benefits on lymphoproliferative malignancies, secukinumab’s tumor progression protection, and etanercept’s short half-life. In cases of high inflammatory activity, biological disease-modifying antirheumatic medications should be utilized in patients with RA and SpA with cancer.
