Sarcoidosis patients at risk of haematologic, nonmelanoma skin cancers

Sarcoidosis patients with biopsy-verified non-necrotizing granulomatous inflammation are at greater risk of haematologic cancers and nonmelanoma skin cancer (NMSC) in the long term than the general population, a study has found.

Danish administrative registers with nationwide coverage were used to identify 3,892 patients with sarcoidosis and 38,920 age- and sex-matched control participants. The authors obtained a biopsy showing non-necrotizing granulomatous inflammation from the lower respiratory tract for all patients at the time of diagnosis.

Time to diagnosis of cancer was the primary outcome. Follow-up started at time of sarcoidosis diagnosis and continued for up to 10 years. The authors then calculated hazard ratios (HRs) as estimates of the cancer risk among sarcoidosis patients relative to that among the population controls and used cumulative incidence functions to compute for the absolute 10-year risk estimates.

In patients with sarcoidosis, long-term risk of haematologic cancers (HR during the first 2 years of follow-up, 2.71, 95 percent confidence interval [CI], 1.18‒6.25; HR after >2 years of follow-up, 2.12, 95 percent CI, 1.29‒3.47) and NMSC increased (HR after >2 years of follow-up, 1.82, 95 percent CI, 1.43‒2.32).

Of note, the increased risk of invasive solid tumours was only observed during the first 2 years (HR, 1.55, 95 percent CI, 1.18‒2.04). Sarcoidosis patients also had a higher absolute 10-year risk of haematologic cancers (risk difference, 0.56 percent, 95 percent CI, 0.11‒1.01) and NMSC (risk difference, 1.58, 95 percent CI, 0.70‒2.47).