Previous cancer and/or lymphoma in patients with refractory IBD--pro: anti-TNF or immunosuppressive treatment

Abstract

Management of patients with IBD and a past or current malignancy has become more frequent in daily practice. As trends in IBD therapy are moving to more immunomodulators, administered earlier and for longer periods than ever, an increasing number of IBD patients with a prior malignancy may receive conventional immunosuppressants (IS) and/or anti-TNF. However, few data are available for managing this IBD subpopulation due to three main reasons: (1) previous cancer is usually an exclusion criterion from all clinical trials, (2) guidelines do not recommend any immunomodulator use in patients who have had a malignancy within the last 5 years, and (3) physicians are reluctant to use immunomodulators which could reactivate dormant micrometastasis. However, there is a lack of scientific evidence for avoiding immunomodulators in IBD patients with previous cancer. In a recently published cohort of patients with previous cancer, no excess incidence of incident cancer was associated with exposure to IS. Data with anti-TNF are lacking in IBD. Recently in a registry including 79 patients with refractory IBD who started an anti-TNF therapy while having had a prior malignancy within the past 5 years, survival rates without incident cancer were 96 and 72% at 1 and 5 years, respectively. Thus, evidence to not start IS and/or anti-TNF therapy in IBD patients who have had a previous cancer is weak. Pending larger studies, a case-by-case joint decision taken with the oncologist and the patient is recommended, and should take IBD and the cancer risk-benefit ratio for using immunomodulators to treat refractory disease into consideration.