medwireNews: Real-world study results suggest that the majority of baricitinib-treated patients with rheumatoid arthritis remain on the Janus kinase (JAK) inhibitor after a year, with older age and female sex associated with treatment persistence.
As outlined at the online British Society for Rheumatology 2021 Annual Conference, the retrospective study included 83 UK patients initiating baricitinib between 2017 and 2020, 66.3% of whom remained on treatment after a mean follow-up of 17 months. Of the 28 individuals who stopped baricitinib, 75% did so within 1 year.
When patients were categorized according to baricitinib use at 1 year, the 62 who remained on the JAK inhibitor were significantly older than the 21 who had stopped (mean 62 vs 49 years), and there was a significantly higher proportion of women in the group who continued treatment (82 vs 67%). On the other hand, use of combination therapy, disease duration, and seropositivity were not significantly associated with continuation rates.
May Nwe Lwin (University Hospital Southampton, UK) reported that lack of efficacy was the most commonly cited reason for baricitinib discontinuation (64%), followed by adverse events (29%).
“In a real-world setting baricitinib was continued and appeared well tolerated in the first year of use by two-thirds of patients,” she concluded.
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