Elidel and Protopic: Eczema Drugs Have Cancer RiskProtopic and Elidel: Eczema Drugs Have a Cancer RiskEarly this year, the Food and Drug Administration issued a warning about two prescription topical creams for the common skin disease, eczema. Both Elidel and Protopic must now include written material for professionals and patients that warns of a cancer risk based on information from animal studies, case reports in a small number of patients, and knowledge of how drugs in this class work. Elidel (generic name: pimecrolimus) and Protopic (generic name: tacrolimus) control eczema by suppressing the immune system, and they can be extremely effective in producing improvements. Until they came along, corticosteroid cream was the standard treatment. Hopes for the newer drugs stem from fears about the side effects of corticosteroid cream like thinning of the skin and adrenal gland suppression. Novartis, the company that makes Elidel, and Astellas Pharma (formerly Fujisawa), maker of Protopic, fed these fears by promoting their products as steroid-free.
