ArticlePharmacoepidemiology and drug safety2022
The risk of melanoma with rasagiline compared with other antiparkinsonian medications: A retrospective cohort study in the United States medicare database.
Article in Pharmacoepidemiology and drug safety, 2022. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 7 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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Who cites it
7 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 6 citations in OpenAlex.
- Use of sensitivity analyses to assess uncontrolled confounding from unmeasured variables in observational, active comparator pharmacoepidemiologic studies: a systematic review.American journal of epidemiology · 2025Pooled it
- Levodopa and Melanoma: Practical Recommendations for Parkinson's Disease-International Parkinson and Movement Disorder Society Scientific Issues Committee Viewpoint.Movement disorders clinical practice · 2026Article
- Article
- Review
- Safety comparisons among monoamine oxidase inhibitors against Parkinson's disease using FDA adverse event reporting system.Scientific reports · 2023Article
- Article
- The risk of melanoma with rasagiline compared with other antiparkinsonian medications: A retrospective cohort study in the United States medicare database.Pharmacoepidemiology and drug safety · 2022Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
7 authors at 3 institutions in 3 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
purposeCompare the risk of melanoma between initiators of rasagiline or other antiparkinsonian drugs (APDs) in a Parkinson's disease (PD) population.
methodsA retrospective cohort study was conducted in the US Medicare claims research database (2006-2015) in adults aged ≥65 years with PD claims. Other APD initiators were randomly matched (4:1) to rasagiline initiators on age, sex, and cohort entry year. Cutaneous melanoma events were identified by a validated claims algorithm. Incidence rates (IRs), incidence rate ratios (IRRs), and Cox-adjusted hazard ratios (HRs) for melanoma comparing rasagiline with other APD initiators were calculated and analyzed by duration of study medication use and cumulative dose of rasagiline. Potential indicators of surveillance bias were explored.
resultsAmong 23 708 rasagiline initiators and 96 552 matched APD initiators, the crude IR of melanoma/100 000 person-years was 334.3 (95% confidence interval [CI], 291.5-381.6) and 208.2 (95% CI, 190.1-227.5), respectively (crude IRR 1.61; 95% CI, 1.36-1.89). The adjusted HR was 1.37 (95% CI, 1.14-1.65) and increased with longer rasagiline exposure and higher cumulative rasagiline doses. Rasagiline initiators more frequently had dermatologist visits or skin biopsies before cohort entry than APD initiators and had a higher incidence of nonmelanoma skin cancer during follow-up (crude IRR, 1.44; 95% CI, 1.35-1.54).
conclusionsA small increased incidence of melanoma with exposure to rasagiline compared with other APDs was observed. Although the pattern with dose and duration is consistent with a hypothesized biologic effect, the increased skin cancer surveillance among rasagiline users suggests surveillance bias as a contributing explanation for the observed results.
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