アブストラクト | OBJECTIVE: Patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) are at an increased risk of acquiring infections owing to immunologic dysfunction and use of potent immunomodulatory medications; however, few data are available on their risk of COVID-19. We estimated the rate of COVID-19 among RA participants and compared it with that of the general population. METHODS: Using the Health Improvement Network, we identified RA patients before February 2020 and followed them to September 2020. We calculated the rate of COVID-19 among participants with RA and compared it with that of the general population using a Cox proportional hazards model, adjusting for potential confounders using overlap weighting of exposure score. We repeated the same analysis among participants with osteoarthritis, a nonautoimmune rheumatic disease, as a negative control exposure. RESULTS: We identified 225 cases of suspected and confirmed COVID-19 among 17,268 RA patients, and 14,234 cases among 1,616,600 participants in the general population (1.4 versus 0.9/1,000 person-months), with the adjusted hazard ratio (HR(adj) ) being 1.19 (95% confidence interval [95% CI] 1.04-1.36). Confirmed COVID-19 cases developed in 46 RA participants and in 2,249 in the general population (0.3 versus 0.1/1,000 person-months), with the HR(adj) being 1.42 (95% CI 1.01-1.95). No statistically significant difference was observed for suspected and confirmed (HR 1.00 [95% CI 0.93-1.07]) or confirmed (HR 1.08 [95% CI 0.92-1.27]) COVID-19 rates between participants with osteoarthritis and the general population. CONCLUSION: RA, but not osteoarthritis, was associated with an increased risk of COVID-19. Our findings provide timely evidence to support recommendations that booster vaccines and priority access to anti-SARS-CoV-2 monoclonal antibody treatments should be encouraged for RA patients. |
ジャーナル名 | Arthritis care & research |
Pubmed追加日 | 2021/12/8 |
投稿者 | Wang, Yilun; D'Silva, Kristin M; Jorge, April M; Li, Xiaoxiao; Lyv, Houchen; Wei, Jie; Zeng, Chao; Lei, Guanghua; Zhang, Yuqing |
組織名 | Xiangya Hospital, Central South University, Changsha, China.;Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston.;Xiangya Hospital, Central South University, Changsha, China, and General Hospital;of Chinese PLA, Beijing, China. |
Pubmed リンク | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34874123/ |