medwireNews: Etanercept is associated with a higher risk for anterior uveitis than adalimumab among patients with spondyloarthritis (SpA), suggests a Swedish registry study.
As reported at the EULAR 2020 E-Congress, Ulf Lindström (University of Gothenburg, Sweden) and co-researchers analyzed data from 3568 patients with ankylosing spondylitis or undifferentiated SpA who started biologic treatment between 2015 and 2018, 23% of whom had a history of anterior uveitis.
When all patients who had previously experienced uveitis were excluded from the analysis, Lindström said that rates of new-onset uveitis were higher among those treated with etanercept (1.2%) or secukinumab (1.3%) compared with adalimumab (0.5%) or infliximab (0.6%), but the absolute rates were too low to draw statistical comparisons.
When only patients with a diagnosis of anterior uveitis in the year before commencing biologic treatment were excluded from the analysis, treatment with etanercept (hazard ratio [HR]=1.80) or secukinumab (HR=2.23) relative to adalimumab was associated with a significantly increased risk for uveitis. The association between etanercept use and uveitis risk remained significant after patients with three or more prior lines of treatment were also excluded from the analysis (HR=1.85), but the secukinumab association was no longer statistically significant.
“There is probably a higher incidence of anterior uveitis on treatment with secukinumab compared to adalimumab, but the association may be explained by residual confounding and bias, said Lindström.
medwireNews is an independent medical news service provided by Springer Healthcare. © 2020 Springer Healthcare part of the Springer Nature Group