The Treatment of Inflammatory Bowel Disease in Patients With a History of Malignancy

Abstract

As patients with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) are living longer and our medical armamentarium expands, gastroenterologists are more frequently faced with treatment decisions about patients with IBD who also have a history of malignancy. This review aims to summarize the current literature on IBD, the inherent risk of developing gastrointestinal and extra-intestinal malignancies, and the risk of malignancies associated with available biologic and immunomodulatory therapies and to discuss the overall treatment strategy for a patient with a history of malignancy.

Keywords: adverse events; biologic therapy; cancer; immunomodulators; lymphoma; melanoma; nonmelanoma.