Arthritis Drugs And Cancer

There is information that is taking air at a very high pace, which is that the use of the rheumatoid drugs may increase the development of the cancer and serious infections in individuals.

The medications that can cause the development of cancer include the Humira and the Remicade. It is being said that these medications can triple the chances of causing the cancer and the chances of getting a serious infection with these medications is double. The chances of having cancers or the serious infections in the individuals depends on how higher the dosage is being taken.

There were some analyses drawn which I would like to put in front of you. It was said that for every 154 patients who are taking this drug, the doctors believe that the chances of development of cancer is in one out of every 154 patients in about 6 to 12 months. The individuals who are expected to have infections gets to about 59 out of the total number of patients treated in a year, which is in a time span of about 3 to 12 months.

According to the study there were about less than 1% of patients who developed cancer. These results were brought about when the researchers put together the data of about nine different trials that was involving about 5000 patients. In this study, the patients had been randomly assigned the drugs.

The drugs Humira and Remicade treat the different inflammatory conditions, which include rheumatoid arthritis, inflammatory disease of the bowel known as Crohn’s disease, as well as psoriasis, which is a skin condition. These drugs are being given to individuals who do not get any benefit from any other medicines or therapies.

The mechanism of action of these drugs is that these drugs are antibodies and their function is to stop the anti-inflammatory effects, which they do by blocking the tumor necrosis factor or TNF, which is an inflammatory protein. There are about 500,000 people who are currently using these drugs to treat the various inflammatory conditions.

It is being stated that the people do not need to quit these medications, but the doctors must be prescribing these medicines at lower doses so that there is a decreased chance of developing cancer or any serious infections.

There was another comment concerning therapies with these drugs was that the individuals who are taking these medications must be screened for cancer so that the chances of developing cancer can be ruled out.

These drugs have made possible to better the life of a lot of individuals, but they should be pursued with extra precaution.


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