Tocilizumab Could Improve Anemia in Patients with RA

Tocilizumab (TCZ) was associated with significant improvements in anemia markers among patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA), according to a recent study.

In their study, the researchers used Centricity Electronic Medical Records to identify patients with RA who received disease-modifying antirheumatic drugs (DMARDs) between January 2000 and April 2016. They identified 3732 patients receiving TCZ, 3126 patients receiving tofacitinib (TOFA), 55,964 receiving other biologic DMARDs (obDMARD), and 91,236 patients receiving other non-biologic DMARDs (onbDMARD). Changes in hemoglobin and hematocrit over 2 years of treatment were evaluated as the main outcome, and analysis was adjusted for potential confounders.
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After 24 months, the mean adjusted increase in hemoglobin was 0.23 g/dL and hematocrit was 0.96% among patients who received TCZ. Patients with anemia who received TCZ had significant increases in hemoglobin and hematocrit by 0.72 g/dL and 2.06%, respectively. Additionally, those with anemia receiving TCZ were 86% more likely to experience a 1 g/dL or more increase in hemoglobin compared with the other groups. Furthermore, those who initiated TCZ earlier than a year following an RA diagnosis were 95% more likely to experience increases in hemoglobin within 6 months compared with those who initiated TCZ therapy after 1 year of diagnosis.

There were no significant changes in hemoglobin among the other groups.

Although treatment with obDMARD showed lower increases in hematocrit compared with the TCZ group, no significant changes in hematocrit were observed in the other groups.

“This real-world study suggests significant increase in [hemoglobin] and [hematocrit] levels after TCZ therapy in anaemic and non-anaemic patients with rheumatoid arthritis, compared with other biologic and non-biologic DMARDs,” the researchers concluded. “However, future population-level clinical research is needed to determine whether the observed improvement in anaemia markers in TCZ-treated patients is associated with meaningful improvements in relevant aspects of quality of life such as fatigue, and in better disease control, the aspects where robust data are very limited.”

—Melissa Weiss

Reference:

Paul SK, Montvida O, Best JH, Gale S, Pethoe-Schramm A, Sarsour K. Effectiveness of biologic and non-biologic antirheumatic drugs on anaemia markers in 153,788 patients with rheumatoid arthritis: new evidence from real-world data [published online August 3, 2017]. Semin Arthritis Rheum. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.semarthrit.2017.08.001.