COVID-19 in DMARD-treated patients with inflammatory rheumatic diseases: Insights from an analysis of the World Health Organization pharmacovigilance database.
Fundam Clin Pharmacol
; 36(1): 199-209, 2022 Feb.
Article
in English
| MEDLINE | ID: covidwho-1223484
ABSTRACT
BACKGROUND:
To determine whether the use of disease-modifying antirheumatic drugs (DMARDs) is linked to the risk of COVID-19 among patients with inflammatory rheumatic diseases (IRDs).METHODS:
We performed a disproportionality analysis of the World Health Organization pharmacovigilance database between January 1, 2020, and June 10, 2020. The frequency of COVID-19 reports for all DMARD classes identified was compared with that for all other reports for all other drugs and quoted as the reporting odds ratio (ROR) (95% confidence interval [CI]).RESULTS:
Among 980,446 individual case-safety reports voluntarily recorded in the database, 398 identified COVID-19 in DMARD-treated patients with IRDs. There were 177 (44.5%) patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA), 120 (30.1%) with ankylosing spondylitis (AS), 93 (23.4%) with psoriatic arthritis (PsA), and 8 (2.0%) with juvenile idiopathic arthritis. Most of the cases of COVID-19 occurred in patients taking anti-TNF agents (84.2%), resulting in a significant disproportionality signal (ROR [95% CI] 8.31 [7.48-9.23]) - particularly in patients with RA, AS or PsA. A significant inverse disproportionality was found for the anti-IL-6 agent tocilizumab (ROR [95% CI] 0.12 [0.02-0.88]) and JAK inhibitors (ROR [95% CI] 0.33 [0.19-0.58]) in patients with RA - suggesting that these two drug classes are safer in the context of RA.CONCLUSION:
Our results are in line with the literature on a potentially better safety profile for anti-IL-6 agents and JAK inhibitors. The WHO pharmacovigilance data suggest that COVID-19 is significantly more frequent in patients with IRDs treated with TNF inhibitors.Keywords
Full text:
Available
Collection:
International databases
Database:
MEDLINE
Main subject:
Arthritis, Rheumatoid
/
Antirheumatic Agents
/
COVID-19
Type of study:
Diagnostic study
/
Observational study
/
Prognostic study
Limits:
Humans
Language:
English
Journal:
Fundam Clin Pharmacol
Journal subject:
Pharmacology
Year:
2022
Document Type:
Article
Affiliation country:
Fcp.12695
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