The article below was in the Vancouver Sun newspaper of yesterday, Wednesday, May 17.
The headline was "Arthritis drugs could increase cancer risk".
The sub-headline was "Remicade and Humira also increase likelihood of pneumonia and TB, study shows.
A class of drugs considered a breakthrough in the treatment of arthritis could significantly increase the risk of cancers and serious infections that put people in hospital, a new study has found.
U.S. and British researchers who pooled data from nine studies, found that arthritis patients taking Remicade and Humira had three times the risk of developing cancer, and twice the risk of pneumonia, tuberculosis and other serious infections, than patients on a "dummy pill" or placebo.
Cancers were more common in patients treated with high dosed of the drugs. The drugs, which are given by injection, were already believed to increase the risk of lymphomas. But the new study, published two days ago in the journalof the American Medical Association, found lung, skin, breast, ovarian and other tumours as well.
"The overall incidence of the risk is low but it is definite and that is something that hadn't really been appreciated before," Materson, a Mayo Clinic rheumatologist, says.
(I left out a few sentences that didn't change the thrust of article. Of interest though was that "more than 163000 prescriptions worth $325.7 million dollars were dispensed for the drugs in the 12 months ending Mar. 31. 2006)
OldGeorge
