Cancer Risk in Children Taking TNF Inhibitors

Investigators from multiple institutions conducted a retrospective study to assess the risk of malignancy in children with juvenile idiopathic arthritis (JIA), inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), or plaque psoriasis (PsO) treated with tumor necrosis factor inhibitors (TNFi). For the study, the investigators abstracted data from a national US Medicaid database during the period 2000–2010, and from the Truven MarketScan files, which include US national claims data from employer-provided commercial insurance between 2010 and 2014. Diagnostic codes were used to identify children >6 months and <18 years old with JIA, IBD, or PsO, and prescription claim data were reviewed to determine if study children received a TNFi (including adalimumab, certolizumab, etanercept, golimumab, and infliximab). Available demographic data were also abstracted from the databases. Malignancies in study …