Rates of serious infections, opportunistic infections, inflammatory bowel disease, and malignancies in subjects receiving etanercept vs. controls from clinical trials in ankylosing spondylitis: a pooled analysis

• Published in: Scandinavian journal of rheumatology 2014-01, Vol.43 (1), p.49-53
• Main Authors: van der Heijde, D, Zack, D, Wajdula, J, Sridharan, S, Koenig, AS
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Adult; Antirheumatic Agents - adverse effects; Antirheumatic Agents - therapeutic use; Clinical Trials as Topic; Double-Blind Method; Etanercept; Female; Humans; Immunoglobulin G - adverse effects; Immunoglobulin G - therapeutic use; Incidence; Infection - chemically induced; Infection - epidemiology; Inflammatory Bowel Diseases - chemically induced; Inflammatory Bowel Diseases - epidemiology; Male; Middle Aged; Neoplasms - chemically induced; Neoplasms - epidemiology; Opportunistic Infections - chemically induced; Opportunistic Infections - epidemiology; Receptors, Tumor Necrosis Factor - therapeutic use; Retrospective Studies; Severity of Illness Index; Spondylitis, Ankylosing - drug therapy; Treatment Outcome
• ISSN: 0300-9742; 1502-7732
• DOI: 10.3109/03009742.2013.834961

Objectives: Therapies involving anti-tumour necrosis factor are associated with increased risk of serious infections, opportunistic infections, and some types of malignancies in subjects with rheumatic diseases. However, limited data have been collected for subjects with ankylosing spondylitis (AS). The aim of this retrospective analysis of all sponsor-conducted trials was to examine the rates of serious infections, inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), malignancies, and non-malignant skin cancers during treatment in subjects with AS. Method: Data from five randomized controlled trials (one sulfasalazine-controlled, four placebo-controlled) and four open-label studies evaluating etanercept were pooled for analyses. All randomized subjects who received at least one dose of treatment were included in the study. Results: Analyses included 1323 subjects (> 1500 subject-years of treatment). Rate ratios of serious infections and IBD events for etanercept vs. placebo/sulfasalazine during the double-blind studies were 2.19 [95% confidence interval (CI) 0.22-107.79] and 1.09 (95% CI 0.06-64.56), respectively. There were no reports of opportunistic infections. Using the Surveillance, Epidemiology and End Results database, the standardized incidence ratio for malignancies was 1.47 (95% CI 0.54-3.21). Conclusions: These data suggest that etanercept is well tolerated in subjects with AS. Despite the large number of patients, the 95% CI data all cross 1.0, limiting possible conclusions. No new safety signals were observed.