RABBIT (Rheumatoide Arthritis: Beobachtung der Biologika-Therapie) investigates disease and therapy courses of more than 21,000 patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) treated in Germany.
At the EULAR Congress, Dr Yvette Meissner presented an analysis of RA patients enrolled in RABBIT. The aim was to show MACE in patients treated with JAKi, tumour necrosis factor inhibitors (TNFi) or conventional synthetic disease-modifying antirheumatic drugs (csDMARDs).
In total, 28 incident MACE were reported. Patients under treatment with JAKi, TNFi, and csDMARD showed comparable incidence rates for MACE – ranging from 0.26 and 0.41 events per 100 patient-years.
The majority of events were reported in the first year after treatment initiation. In adjusted analyses, JAKi and csDMARDs did not show a significantly increased risk for MACE compared with TNFi in RA patients. Selecting patients with a higher cardiovascular risk according to the Oral Surveillance inclusion criteriawas also not associated with a risk increase.
The authors conclude that the rates of MACE in patients receiving JAKi in this real-world setting was lower than that reported for tofacitinib in the Oral Surveillance study. There was no evidence of an increased risk of MACE with JAKi compared to TNFi, although patients in the JAKi group were older and had longer disease duration.