Treatment survival with biological therapy may be influenced by many factors, and it seems to be different among various rheumatic diseases and biological agents. The goal of the study was to compare the drug survival and the causes of discontinuation of anti-tumoral necrosis factor (anti-TNF) therapy in ankylosing spondylitis (AS) with rheumatoid arthritis (RA). Study participants were a cohort from the Brazilian Registry of Biological Therapies in Rheumatic Diseases (BIOBADABRASIL) between 2008 and 2012. The observation time was up to 4 years following the introduction of the first treatment. Gender, age, disease duration, disease activity, comorbidities, and concomitant therapies were assessed. A total of 1303 patients were included: 372 had AS and 931 had RA in which 38.7 % (n = 504) used infliximab (IFX), 34.9 % (n = 455) used adalimumab (ADA), and 26.4 % (n = 344) used etanercept (ETA). The anti-TNF drug survival of patients with AS was 63.08 months (confidence interval (CI) 60.24, 65.92) and patients with RA was 47.5 months (CI 45.65, 49.36). It was significant higher in AS (log-rank; p ≤ 0.001). Patients with RA discontinued anti-TNF more than patients with AS when adjusted to gender and corticosteroid. The adjHR (95 % CI) was 1.6 (1.14, 2.31). Female patients who were also corticosteroid users, but not of advanced age, have shown lower survival for both diseases (log-rank, p ≤ 0.001). The discontinuation rate of IFX, but not of ADA or ETA, was significantly higher in RA than in SA; HR (95 % CI) was 2.49 (1.46, 4.24). The main causes of discontinuation were ineffectiveness and adverse event in both diseases. AS patients have better drug survival adjusted to gender, age, and corticosteroid. This results appear to be related to the disease mechanism.

The incidence of tuberculosis was higher among users of synthetic DMARDs and anti-TNF than among users of synthetic DMARDs and synthetic DMARDs and non-anti-TNF biologics and also occurred later, suggesting infection during treatment and no screening failure.

OBJECTIVES:To investigate the prevalence of dyslipoproteinemia in a homogeneous cohort of polyarticular juvenile idiopathic arthritis patients.METHODS:Based on the National Cholesterol Education Program, fasting lipoprotein levels and risk levels for coronary artery disease were determined in 28 patients with polyarticular juvenile idiopathic arthritis. The exclusion criteria included diabetes, thyroid dysfunction, smoking, proteinuria, lipid-lowering drugs, and hormone/diuretic therapy. Disease activity, disease duration, and therapy with corticosteroids and/or chloroquine were defined at the time of lipid measurements.RESULTS:Dyslipoproteinemia was identified in 20 of the 28 (71%) patients with polyarticular juvenile idiopathic arthritis. The primary lipoprotein risk factor was decreased high-density lipoprotein cholesterol (57%), followed by elevated levels of low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (18%), triglycerides (14%), and total cholesterol (7%). The male patients had decreased high-density lipoprotein cholesterol levels than the female patients (p<0.05). The incidence of decreased high-density lipoprotein cholesterol levels did not seem to be affected by disease activity or therapy because the incidence was similar in patients with active or inactive disease, with or without corticosteroid use and with or without chloroquine use. In addition, the frequency of decreased high-density lipoprotein cholesterol levels was similar in patients with short (≤5 years) vs. long (>5 years) disease duration.CONCLUSIONS:Dyslipoproteinemia is highly prevalent in patients with polyarticular juvenile idiopathic arthritis and is primarily related to decreased high-density lipoprotein cholesterol levels; therefore, early intervention is essential.

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Objective Most reports on serious infections (SI) in rheumatoid arthritis (RA) patients treated with biological disease-modifying antirheumatic drugs (bDMARDs) are from the USA and Western Europe. Data from other regions are largely missing. We report data from South American countries with different backgrounds and health-care systems but similar registries. Methods We merged 2010-2016 data from two registries, BIOBADABRASIL (Brazil) and BIOBADASAR (Argentina), which share the same protocol, online platform and data monitoring process. Patients with active RA were included when they began the first bDMARD or a conventional synthetic DMARD (csDMARD, control group). The SI incidence rate (IR) per 1000 patient/ years and adjusted IR ratio (aIRR) were estimated for bDMARDs and csDMARDs. Results Data were analysed for 3717 RA patients with an exposure of 13,380 patient/years. The 2591 patients treated with bDMARDs (64% tumour necrosis factor-α inhibitors (TNFi)) had a follow-up of 9300 years, and the 1126 treated with csDMARDs had an exposure of 4081 patient/years. The SI IR was 30.54 (CI 27.18-34.30) for all bDMARDs and 5.15 (CI 3.36-7.89) for csDMARDs. The aIRR between the two groups was 2.03 ([1.05, 3.9] p = 0.034) for the first 6 months of treatment but subsequently increased to 8.26 ([4.32, 15.76] p < 0.001). The SI IR for bDMARDs decreased over time in both registries, dropping from 36.59 (28.41-47.12) in 2012 to 7.27 (4.79-11.05) in 2016. Conclusion While SI remains a major concern in South American patients with RA treated with bDMARDs, a favourable trend toward a reduction was observed in the last years. Key Points • New comprehensive data on biologic drugs safety from international collaboration in South America. • First proposal for national registries data merging in South America. • Serious infections remain a major concern in RA patients treated with biologics. • A significant reduction of serious infections in RA patients exposed to biologics was observed over a 7 years period.

To determine the prevalence of dyslipoproteinemia on a large juvenile systemic lupus erythematosus (jSLE) cohort, we selected 40 patients after rigorous exclusion criteria. Lipoprotein levels were determinated after 12 hours fast and risk levels for CAD were defined by standards of the Brazilian Guidelines for dyslipoproteinemia according to US-NCEP. All individuals were under steroid therapy and chloroquine and 43% had active disease. Thirty patients (75%) had high-risk levels for CAD (23 isolated low HDL, while in seven subjects low HDL was associated to high TG in four, high LDL in one, high TG/LDL in one and high TC/LDL in one). Remarkably, overall analysis revealed that 85% patients were included in high/medium risk levels group (29% for TC, 29% for LDL, 88% for HDL, and 18% for TG) and these disturbances occured mainly in the first four years of disease. Unexpectedly, one-third of the patients presented two or more high/medium lipoprotein risk factors. Independently, active jSLE was associated to TG (OR = 3.2; P < 0.001) and had a tendency towards reduction on HDL (OR = 8.5; P = 0.056). Considering improvements on jSLE outcome, the increased frequency of high/medium lipoprotein risk levels for CAD reinforces the need of prevention measures in order to minimize deleterious effects of this disturbance.

In the Results section, under the subheading, "Comparison of MTX + LEF with MTX/LEF, " the first sentence in the third paragraph should not include adjusted HRs (aHRs) as the values refer to crude incidence: "Considering the risk of laboratory abnormalities comparing MTX + LEF with the MTX or LEF group, there were numerically higher incidence of anemia (0.7, 95% CI 0.4-1.2 per 100 PY vs 0.4, 95% CI 0.2-0.6 per 100 PY, respectively), and elevation of hepatic transaminases (0.6, 95% CI 0.3-1.1 per 100 PY vs 0.3, 95% CI 0.1-0.5 per 100 PY, respectively) in the former group." In the Table 3 footnotes, biologic DMARDs/tofacitinib should not be included in the legend "b". The correct legend is, " b Adjusted for age, baseline DAS28, disease duration, sex, current smoking, seropositivity for rheumatoid factor or anti-CCP, history of malignancy, diabetes, hypertension, hypercholesterolemia, renal failure, ischemic cardiomyopathy, COPD, heart failure, use of sulfasalazine, antimalarials, corticosteroids, starting year, osteoporosis, and hepatitis B and C." The errors do not affect the results or conclusions of the study.