Immunosuppressive drug methotrexate linked to increased risk of three types of skin cancer - News-Medical.Net

The immunosuppressive drug methotrexate (MTX) can be linked to an elevated risk of three types of skin cancer, a new study by University of Gothenburg researchers shows.

When the researchers confined the study to patients with psoriasis, they found no statistical correlation linking MTX to a raised SCC or CMM risk.

These results might also be interpreted as reassuring to dermatologists who mainly use MTX as the first line therapy of systemic drugs to treat patients with moderate to severe psoriasis," Polesie says.

Used since the 1950s, MTX still constitutes an important drug particularly in the dermatology and rheumatology treatment armamentarium, since it is mainly prescribed for patients with rheumatoid arthritis and psoriasis.

Simultaneously, in assessing the benefit the medicine is expected to confer, the prescribing physician always weighs in the patient's medical condition and history.

In the past few years, several epidemiology investigations have examined if MTX is associated with an elevated risk of skin cancer, but the research findings to date have been somewhat contradictory.