medwireNews: Findings from a meta-analysis indicate that systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) is associated with an increased risk for 16 types of cancer.
“This evidence could be utilized to drive public policies and to help guide personalized medicine to better manage SLE and reduce associated cancer morbidity and mortality,” say Yan Lu (The First Affiliated Hospital of Nanjing Medical University, China) and co-authors.
The team analyzed data from 24 studies, finding that patients with SLE had a significant 28% increased overall cancer risk compared with the general population, and the risk was significantly elevated in both men and women.
When the analysis was broken down by cancer type, SLE patients had a significantly elevated risk for 16 cancer types – including renal and bladder malignancy and various hematologic cancers, as well as lung, head and neck, and nonmelanoma skin cancer – relative to the general population.
On the other hand, SLE was associated with a reduced risk for prostate cancer and cutaneous melanoma, and there was no significant association between SLE and breast, ovarian, uterine, pancreatic, colorectal, or brain cancer.
Lu and colleagues conclude in Arthritis Research & Therapy that “[f]uture high-quality research is required to verify our findings and this should pay more attention to the underlying mechanisms” mediating the association between SLE and cancer risk.
By Claire Barnard
medwireNews is an independent medical news service provided by Springer Healthcare. © 2018 Springer Healthcare part of the Springer Nature group
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