Patients with SLE before age 40 may have lower risk for breast, endometrial cancer

Patients with systemic lupus erythematosus diagnosed before the age of 40 had a lower incidence of breast and ovarian cancers compared with the general population, according to research presented at the Canadian Rheumatology Association Annual Meeting.Data from 23 centers and 5,406 women diagnosed with systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) at a mean age of 26.8 years were collected. The data spanned 44,073 person-years with an average follow-up of 8 years per patient. Standard incidence ratios (SIR) were calculated by dividing the actual number of events per cancer type by the expected number of the respective cancer. The expected cancer incidence was calculated by multiplying the general population cancer rates matched for age and sex by the number of person-years at risk in the study cohort.