Treatment involving oral steroids for a period of two years or more could be used to minimize the risk of rheumatoid arthritis (RA) related lymphoma, as per data presented at EULAR 2007, the Annual European Congress of Rheumatology, in Barcelona, Spain.

It was reported that benefits of steroids were noticed irrespective of when in the course of the disease the steroids were first administered.

From Sciencedaily.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.

It was remarked by study author Dr Eva Baecklund of Uppsala University Hospital, Sweden that a new aspect of steroid treatment was reported by the data.