Therapy with JAK inhibitors or bDMARDs and the risk of cardiovascular events in the Dutch rheumatoid arthritis population

Objective: Caution has been advocated recently when using Janus kinase inhibitors (JAKi) in rheumatoid arthritis (RA) patients with an unfavourable cardiovascular risk profile. We aimed to compare the incidences in cardiovascular events between JAKi and biologic DMARDs (bDMARDs) in a large population of RA patients.

Methods: RA patients starting a new bDMARD or JAKi between 1 August 2018 and 31 January 2022 have been selected from IQVIA's Dutch Real-World Data Longitudinal Prescription database, covering about 63% of outpatient prescriptions in the Netherlands. Study outcome was a cardiovascular event, defined as the start of platelet aggregation inhibitors during the study period. The incidence densities of cardiovascular events were compared between JAKi and bDMARDs using multilevel Poisson regression, adjusted for exposure time and confounders.

Results: The number of unique patients included was 15 191, with 28 481 patient-years on treatment with either JAKi (2373) or bDMARDs (26 108). Most patients were female (72%) and median age was 62 years. We found 36 cardiovascular events (1.52 events/100 patient-years) during therapy with JAKi and 383 events (1.47 events/100 patient-years) during therapy with bDMARDs, resulting in an adjusted incidence rate ratio (IRR) of 0.99 for JAKi compared with bDMARDs (95% CI: 0.70, 1.41). Sub-analyses in patients >65 years, by sex, or separately for tofacitinib and baricitinib, yielded similar results.

Conclusion: In a large Dutch general RA population, the risk of cardiovascular events seems not to be different between JAKi users and those using bDMARDs, although a small increase in higher risk patients cannot be excluded.