Editorial: weighing the global risk of cancer with thiopurines in inflammatory bowel disease

Abstract

Inflammatory bowel diseases (IBD) are associated with an increased risk of malignancy, which could be the consequence of the disease or its treatments. Therefore, it was expected that preventing gut inflammation with medical therapy could exert a preventive effect on this cancer risk.Two prior meta-analyses exploring the impact of thiopurines on the risk of colorectal neoplasia provided controversial conclusions. In the present updated meta-analysis including results from six additional studies and pooling data from 24 cohort, case-control and population-based studies, Lu et al observed an antineoplastic effect of thiopurine on high-grade dysplasia and colorectal cancer, especially in ulcerative colitis (UC). 2014-004728-23) will provide better knowledge on this personalised medicine for managing the whole cancer risk in IBD patients. ACKNOWLEDG EMENTS

Editorial: weighing the global risk of cancer with thiopurines in inflammatory bowel disease—Authors' reply

“…We thank Drs Laharie and Riviere for their interest in our work . As they mentioned, IBD is characterised by chronic recurrent intestinal inflammation, usually associated with increased risk of malignancies, especially gastro‐intestinal carcinomas.…”