Herpes Zoster and Tofacitinib Therapy in Patients With Rheumatoid Arthritis

“…The incidence rate of all herpes zoster events (serious and non-serious) was higher in the present study (7.1 events per 100 patient-years with 5 mg BID and 8.6 events per 100 patient-years with 10 mg BID) than in the global pooled analysis (4.3 events per 100 patient-years) and also higher than reported in the pooled analyses of tocilizumab therapy (2.3 events per 100 patient-years) [ 24 ] and etanercept therapy (2.9 events per 100 patient-years) [ 25 ]. The high rate of herpes zoster observed in the current study is consistent with previous risk factor analysis that highlighted high herpes zoster rates in Japanese populations [ 30 ]. The incidence rate of malignancies (excluding non-melanoma skin cancer) for tofacitinib-treated patients (1.2 events per 100 patient-years) in this LTE study was comparable with the rate in the global tofacitinib LTE study (1.0 event per 100 patient-years) [ 14 ] and with global rates previously reported for biologic DMARDs (0.3–1.77 events per 100 patient-years) [ 31 – 34 ].…”