John W Baddley, Kevin L Winthrop, Lang Chen, Liyan Liu, Carlos G Grijalva, Elizabeth Delzell, Timothy Beukelman, Nivedita M Patkar, Fenglong Xie, Kenneth G Saag, Lisa J Herrinton, Daniel H Solomon, James D Lewis, Jeffrey R Curtis
OBJECTIVES: To determine among patients with autoimmune diseases in the USA whether the risk of non-viral opportunistic infections (OI) was increased among new users of tumour necrosis factor α inhibitors (TNFI), when compared to users of non-biological agents used for active disease. METHODS: We identified new users of TNFI among cohorts of rheumatoid arthritis (RA), inflammatory bowel disease and psoriasis-psoriatic arthritis-ankylosing spondylitis patients during 1998-2007 using combined data from Kaiser Permanente Northern California, two pharmaceutical assistance programmes for the elderly, Tennessee Medicaid and US Medicaid/Medicare programmes...
November 2014: Annals of the Rheumatic Diseases