Tofacitinib Does not Raise risk of VTE in Rheumatoid Arthritis Patients: Study

In this cohort study, the researchers examined that connection using claims data from the IBM "MarketScan" (2012-2018), Medicare parts A, B, and D (2012-2017), and "Optum" Clinformatics (2012-2019) databases, which provided information on demographic characteristics, medical diagnoses and procedures, and prescription records. They included a total of 42,201, 25,078, and 20,374 RA patients from MarketScan, Medicare, and Optum, respectively; of whom 7.1%, 7.1%, and 9.7% were tofacitinib initiators. The patients were followed until treatment discontinuation, treatment switch, insurance disenrollment, or administrative censoring. The major outcome assessed was VTE occurrence which was identified using inpatient claims for pulmonary embolism or deep vein thrombosis.

Key findings of the study were:

• Upon analysis, the researchers found that the crude incidence rates (IRs)/100 person-years for tofacitinib and TNFIs were:
  

♦ 0.42 and 0.35 in MarketScan,

♦ 1.18 and 0.83 in Medicare, and

♦ 0.19 and 0.34 in Optum, respectively.

• Upon propensity scored- weighted hazard ratio (HR), they observed no significant differences in the risk of VTE between tofacitinib and TNFIs in any database with a pooled HR of 1.13.

The authors concluded, "Overall, VTE occurred infrequently (<1 per 100) in a total of 87,653 RA patients initiating tofacitinib or a TNFI. We observed no evidence for an increased risk of VTE for tofacitinib versus TNFIs in RA patients."

For further information:

https://doi.org/10.1093/rheumatology/keab294