Sarcoidosis patients at increased risk for certain cancers

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - A paper in the June 15th issue of the International Journal of Cancer suggests that patients with sarcoidosis have an increased risk of specific cancers but not a higher overall cancer risk.

Using discharge records for men admitted to Veterans Affairs hospitals between 1969 and 1996, Dr. Gloria Gridley of the National Cancer Institute in Bethesda, Maryland and colleagues compared the incidence of cancer in 2013 whites and 3755 blacks with sarcoidosis and the incidence in 2,792,503 whites and 662,204 blacks without sarcoidosis.

Patients with sarcoidosis had a total of 241 malignant neoplasms (102 in whites and 139 in blacks). The relative risk (RR) for all neoplasms was 0.99.

However, compared to non-sarcoidosis patients, the sarcoidosis patients had increased risks of rectal cancer (RR 2.12), colon cancer (RR 1.55), and kidney cancer (RR 1.84) but a lower risk for lung cancer (RR 0.60).

"Chronic inflammation (at both the local and the systemic level) due to sarcoidosis is a plausible mechanism for the observed effect," the researchers conclude.

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