Kerschbaumer, et al. provide results of a systematic literature review (SLR) on efficacy of synthetic and biological DMARDs, to inform the 2022 update of the EULAR recommendations for the management of rheumatoid arthritis.

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November 2022

Large, population-based, real-world cohort of study in patients with RA finds tofacitinib not to be associated with an increased risk of malignancies, in comparison to TNFi agents, although a numerically increased risk of malignancies was observed in older patients with risk factors for cardiovascular disease.

Real-world population study of patients with RA provides reassuring data regarding the risks of major adverse cardiovascular events (MACEs) and venous thromboembolism events (VTEs) in patients initiating a JAKinib versus adalimumab, including patients at high risk of cardiovascular diseases.

October 2022

Nationwide register-based study in Sweden finds that patients with RA treated with JAKinibs in routine clinical practice are at increased risk of venous thromboembolism (VTE), compared with those treated with bDMARDs, an increase numerically confined to pulmonary embolism.

September 2022

Olokizumab versus Placebo or Adalimumab in Rheumatoid Arthritis

N Engl J Med. 2022;387(8):715–726. doi: 10.1056/NEJMoa2201302

Phase 3 trial of olokizumab, a direct inhibitor of the IL-6 ligand, demonstrates superiority to placebo with respect to an ACR20 response at week 12 and noninferiority to adalimumab (all combined with methotrexate), in patients with RA.

Post hoc analysis findings provide the first data evaluating the importance of treatment order with JAKinib vs TNFi as initial therapy, suggesting that a JAKinib first strategy leads to more rapid improvements in treatment outcomes following csDMARD failure.

Post hoc analysis, using the final dataset from ORAL Surveillance, reveals a higher risk of non-serious infections and herpes zoster with tofacitinib vs TNFi, and higher risk of serious infection events with tofacitinib 10 mg BID versus TNFi, particularly in patients aged ≥65 years.

August 2022

Herpes zoster (HZ) risk is significantly increased in seropositive RA patients with a history of HZ after the initiation of bDMARDs or tsDMARD. It is now well known that the incidence and recurrence of HZ are quite common in patients with RA in real-world clinical settings, yet there is limited evidence regarding bDMARD-dependent HZ risk among patients with a history of HZ prior to bDMARD use.

June 2022

Retrospective, longitudinal, population-based study shows that despite an overall higher incidence of hospitalised infection (HI) in both elderly and older elderly patients compared to young patients, the risks of HI in patients exposed to targeted therapy versus MTX is not significantly increased.

Observational study of data, from large international collective of registers, finds similar overall drug retention rates between RA treatment groups.