Risk of nonmelanoma skin cancer in patients with psoriatic arthritis and according to bDMARD treatment-a…

Cohort studyEULAR rheumatology open· Jun 2026

Risk of nonmelanoma skin cancer in patients with psoriatic arthritis and according to bDMARD treatment-a cohort study from the Nordic Arthritis Research Collaboration.

Rasmus Westermann, Bénédicte Delcoigne, René Lindholm Cordtz … Karin Hellgren

Skin Cancer & MelanomaCohort studyPrognosis

Psoriatic arthritis linked to higher risk of nonmelanoma skin cancer than general population.

Risk of nonmelanoma skin cancer in patients with psoriatic arthritis and according to bDMARD treatment-a cohort study from the Nordic Arthritis Research Collaboration.

Rasmus Westermann … Karin Hellgren

EULAR rheumatology open · Jun 2026

Purpose

To investigate if psoriatic arthritis (psoriatic arthritis) itself and if biological disease-modifying antirheumatic drugs (bDMARDs) used in psoriatic arthritis are associated with increased risks of nonmelanoma skin cancer (nonmelanoma skin cancer).

Methods

From nationwide health and clinical rheumatology registers in 4 Nordic countries, we identified patients with psoriatic arthritis who between 2010 and 2021 started a: (i) tumour necrosis factor inhibitor (TNFi), or (ii) non-TNFi bDMARD, or were (iii) b/targeted synthetic (ts)DMARD naïve.

n = 23,553

Results

psoriatic arthritis raises skin cancer risk above the general population

aHR 1.20 (95% CI 1.11 to 1.31)

CI excludes the null - significant

More results

We identified 619 NMSCs among incident patients with psoriatic arthritis (n = 23,553).

We observed 221 NMSCs in TNFi-treated (n = 9999), 34 NMSCs in non-TNFi bDMARD-treated (n = 2200), and 433 NMSCs in b/tsDMARD-naïve (n = 19,089) psoriatic arthritis.

More results

Pooled aHRs for nonmelanoma skin cancer overall were 1.24 (1.03-1.50) with TNFi and 1.11 (0.75-1.63) with non-TNFi bDMARDs vs b/tsDMARD-naïve psoriatic arthritis.

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Conclusion · 1 of 3

Increased risks of nonmelanoma skin cancer (squamous cell carcinoma in particular) were found in patients with psoriatic arthritis compared with the general population.

Conclusion · 2 of 3

Compared with b/tsDMARD-naïve psoriatic arthritis, TNFi was associated with an increased risk of nonmelanoma skin cancer overall, whereas a nonsignificantly increased risk of squamous cell carcinoma was seen for non-TNFi bDMARDs.

Conclusion · 3 of 3

However, causality between bDMARD use and nonmelanoma skin cancer in psoriatic arthritis remains uncertain.

Risk of nonmelanoma skin cancer in patients with psoriatic arthritis and according to bDMARD treatment-a cohort study from the Nordic Arthritis Research Collaboration.

Risk of nonmelanoma skin cancer in patients with psoriatic arthritis and according to bDMARD treatment-a cohort study from the Nordic Arthritis Research Collaboration.

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