Description: People taking rheumatoid arthritis drugs such as etanercept (Enbrel) or infliximab (Remicade) may be at a slightly increased risk for skin cancer, researchers report.

However, the risk is probably not significant enough to outweigh the benefits of these drugs, the researchers said.

These so-called biologic treatments work by blocking tumor necrosis factor alpha (TNF-alpha), which previous studies had found to be linked with increased risk of skin, lung and blood cancers.

"The risk of skin cancer is marginally increased among people with rheumatoid arthritis," said lead researcher Dr. Frederick Wolfe, a clinical professor of internal medicine at the University of Kansas School of Medicine. "But it's nothing that anybody should be worried about," he added.

For the study, Wolfe and his colleagues collected data on 13,001 patients with rheumatoid arthritis included in the National Data Bank for Rheumatic Diseases and the U.S. National Canc