RESEARCH - Decreased incidence of anterior uveitis in patients with AS treated with Remicade and Enbrel

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Arthritis Rheum. 2005 Aug;52(8):2447-51.

Decreased incidence of anterior uveitis in patients with ankylosing

spondylitis treated with the anti-tumor necrosis factor agents infliximab

and etanercept.

Braun J, Baraliakos X, Listing J, Sieper J.

Rheumazentrum Ruhrgebiet, and Ruhr University Bochum, Herne, Germany.

J.Braun@...

OBJECTIVE: To estimate the incidence of anterior uveitis in patients with

ankylosing spondylitis (AS) who underwent anti-tumor necrosis factor

(anti-TNF) therapy, using data from recently performed trials. METHODS: Data

from 4 placebo-controlled studies with anti-TNF agents in AS (2 with

etanercept and 2 with infliximab) and 3 open-label studies were analyzed for

the prestudy prevalence and the incidence of reported flares of anterior

uveitis. RESULTS: A total of 717 patients who received treatment for

anterior uveitis during the course of published clinical studies were

identified by a systematic literature search using Medline. Followup

information on the course of anterior uveitis was available for 397

patients. Of these, 297 were exposed to etanercept and 90 were exposed to

infliximab for a total of 430 and 146.4 years, respectively. Among 190

patients who received placebo, the overall exposure was 70.5 years. The

frequency of flares of anterior uveitis in the placebo group was 15.6 per

100 patient-years (95% confidence interval 7.8-27.9), while the patients

treated with anti-TNF agents had a mean of only 6.8 anterior uveitis flares

per 100 patient-years (P = 0.01). Flares of anterior uveitis occurred less

frequently (although not significantly) in patients treated with infliximab

than in patients treated with etanercept (3.4 per 100 patient-years and 7.9

per 100 patient-years, respectively). CONCLUSION: Treatment of AS patients

with biologic agents directed against TNFalpha is associated with a

significant decrease in the number of anterior uveitis flares. This

reduction was slightly more marked among patients treated with infliximab,

but the difference was not significant.

PMID: 16052578

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve & db=PubMed & list_uids=1\

6052578 & dopt=Abstract

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