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A systematic tracking of the skin cancer could be beneficial for the patients affected by rheumatoid arthritis, sustain Australian researchers.

It is that, according to their results, the cases of skin cancer were three times more elevated among the subjects suffering from arthritis that took the methotrexate, a medicine current antiarthritique, that in the population in general.

This survey is the first to establish a tie between this medicine and the risk to be reached of a melanoma, the researchers affirm.

The patients under medication were also five times more to be reached to risk of non-Hodgkin lymphoma (cancer of the lymphatic system) and three times more to risk to suffer from a cancer of the lung, reveal the results. Other studies already established some ties between these two types of cancer and people affected by rheumatoid arthritis.

In a general way, the topics of the cohort saw increase to 50% of their risk to be reached of a cancerous tumor.

The researchers followed, during about ten years, 459 arthritic patients who took the methotrexate. This medicine has the effect of slowing down the progression of the rheumatoid arthritis, an illness during which the patient’s immune system tackles the joints.

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