Use of biologic or targeted-synthetic disease-modifying anti-rheumatic drugs and risk of diabetes treatment intensification in patients with rheumatoid arthritis and diabetes mellitus

Abstract

OBJECTIVES: Given that RA treatment might affect the severity of diabetes mellitus (DM), we compared the risk of DM treatment intensification in patients with both RA and DM newly initiating a biologic DMARD or tofacitinib. METHODS: Using claims data from the IBM MarketScan database (2005-2016), we identified patients aged ≥18 years with RA who initiated abatacept, a TNF inhibitor (TNFi), rituximab, tocilizumab or tofacitinib. Patients were required to have type 1 or type 2 DM and to use at least one antidiabetic drug at baseline. We assessed DM treatment intensification (i.e. addition of a new insulin or non-insulin antidiabetic medication). We also assessed non-insulin antidiabetic medication switching events. RESULTS: We included 10 019 patients with RA and DM initiating a biologic DMARD or tofacitinib. Baseline insulin use was the highest in rituximab initiators (44%) and lowest in tofacitinib initiators (35%). The incidence rate per 1000 person-years for DM treatment intensification ranged from 148.2 (tofacitinib) to 198.0 (rituximab). The risk of DM treatment intensification was similar between abatacept and TNFi [hazard ratio (HR) 0.97, 95% CI: 0.82, 1.15], rituximab (HR 0.99, 95% CI: 0.79, 1.23) and tocilizumab (HR 0.94, 95% CI: 0.74, 1.19), but lower for tofacitinib compared with abatacept (HR 0.67, 95% CI: 0.50, 0.90). The risk of non-insulin DM treatment switching was not different between abatacept and other biologic DMARDs. CONCLUSION: TNFi, rituximab and tocilizumab, whereas the risk appeared to be lower for tofacitinib.

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