GCA not linked to cancer

A small Australian study has concluded that patients with giant cell arteritis (GCA) are not at increased risk of cancer. Using data from South Australian pathology reports and the SA Cancer Registry, researchers identified 226 patients with biopsy-proven GCA, of which 163 were female and 63 were male. At the time of censoring, 56 patients had developed cancer; 25 were diagnosed before GCA and 31 patients were diagnosed with cancer after GCA. Patients were not at increased risk for any cancer after GCA diagnosis, nor was there any difference between males or females. Age was also not associated with any difference in patients with or without cancer (P=0.72). There was a slightly elevated risk for prostate cancer after GCA diagnosis, however the study authors noted it was only marginally statistically significant (P=0.04). “This may, in fact, be related to surveillance [rather than any association between GCA and cancer] because men are less likely to be involved in cancer screening programmes than women,” they wrote in Rheumatology. The authors noted that their findings differed to a recent study of more than 270 patients which suggested there was a temporal association between malignancy and diagnosis of GCA. “We did not find evidence of an association between cancer and biopsy-proven GCA in this population,” they said. “However, our study lacked clinical data from patients with biopsy-proven GCA, excluded patients with biopsy-negative GCA, and had limited power to detect an increased risk of cancer in specific cancer sites,” they said. Rheumatology. January 20, 2010....