Use of steroids in long run minimize lymphoma risk in Rheumatoid Arthritis

The risk of rheumatoid arthritis (RA) related lymphoma is considerably minimized when treatment involving oral steroids is followed for a period of two years or more. The finding was revealed in data presented at EULAR 2007, the Annual European Congress of Rheumatology, in Barcelona, Spain.

The data further disclosed that the benefits of steroids are in easy reach irrespective of when the steroids were first administered in course of the disease.

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From MedicalNewsToday.com:

The study involved 378 patients with rheumatoid arthritis-associated lymphoma identified from the Swedish Hospital Register and the Cancer Register compared with 378 individually matched RA controls, i.e. patients with RA but without lymphoma.
Using data on steroid treatment type and duration along with inflammatory load collected from cases and controls, information on lymphoma type (where observed) was also collected. The lymphoma tissues were obtained from the pathology laboratories and were reclassified according to the most recent lymphoma classification, the World Health Organization classification.
Interestingly, researchers also compiled information on the duration of RA at initiation of steroid treatment. In this study there was no correlation observed between protective function and length of RA at onset of steroidal treatment. The protective effect was identical in those starting steroid treatment the first five years after onset of RA and in those starting later (relative risk 0.6; 0.3-0.9). Steroid treatment outcome was not associated with the presence of the Epstein-Barr virus in the lymphomas.
These results build on those of a previously published study that reported that orally prescribed and intra-articular (administered within the joint or joint cavity) steroids protect the individual from the development of malignant (actively cancerous) lymphomas in a dose responsive manner.

Study author Dr Eva Baecklund of Uppsala University Hospital, Sweden, remarked that steroid treatment in the long run could reduce the risk of malignant lymphomas (cancer in the immune system) in patients with severe rheumatoid arthritis.