@article {Morie001601, author = {Shunsuke Mori and Yukitomo Urata and Tamami Yoshitama and Yukitaka Ueki}, title = {Tofacitinib versus tocilizumab in the treatment of biological-na{\"\i}ve or previous biological-failure patients with methotrexate-refractory active rheumatoid arthritis}, volume = {7}, number = {2}, elocation-id = {e001601}, year = {2021}, doi = {10.1136/rmdopen-2021-001601}, publisher = {BMJ Specialist Journals}, abstract = {Objectives To compare effectiveness between tofacitinib and tocilizumab treatments for biological disease-modifying antirheumatic drug (bDMARD)-na{\"\i}ve patients or previous bDMARD-failure patients with active rheumatoid arthritis (RA) refractory to methotrexate (MTX).Methods We used two ongoing real-world registries of patients with RA who had first started tofacitinib or tocilizumab between August 2013 and February 2019 at our institutions. Clinical disease activity index (CDAI)-based improvements at 12 months were used for comparisons between tofacitinib and tocilizumab treatments, separately for bDMARD-na{\"\i}ve and previous bDMARD-failure patients.Results A total of 464 patients with RA with high or moderate CDAI were enrolled (247 with tofacitinib and 217 with tocilizumab). After adjustments for treatment-selection bias by propensity score matching, we showed that tofacitinib was more likely to induce and maintain >=85\% improvement in CDAI (CDAI85), CDAI70 and remission at 12 months compared with tocilizumab in bDMARD-na{\"\i}ve patients. After adjusting for concurrent use of MTX and prednisolone, the ORs of tofacitinib versus tocilizumab were 3.88 (95\% CI 1.87 to 8.03) for CDAI85, 2.89 (95\% CI 1.43 to 5.84) for CDAI70 and 3.31 (95\% CI 1.69 to 6.48) for remission. These effects were not observed in bDMARD-failure patients. In tofacitinib treatment for bDMARD-failure patients, the number of previously failed bDMARD classes was not associated with CDAI-based improvements. The rate of overall adverse events was similar between both treatments. Similar ORs were obtained from patients adjusted by inverse probability of treatment weighting.Conclusions Compared with tocilizumab, tofacitinib can induce greater improvements during the first 12-month treatment in bDMARD-na{\"\i}ve patients, but this difference was not observed in previous bDMARD-failure patients.Data are available upon reasonable request. Data underlying the findings are available from the Human Research Ethics Committee of the National Hospital Organization Kumamoto Saishun Medical Center for all interested researchers who meet the criteria for access to confidential data. Since these data include potentially identifying or sensitive personal information of individual patients, however, the Committee does not recommend that such data be made public unnecessarily. Please contact Mr Shunichi Tsutsumiuchi, the Control Manager of the Committee, at tsutsumiuchi.shunichi.dz@mail.hosp.go.jp to request the data.}, URL = {https://rmdopen.bmj.com/content/7/2/e001601}, eprint = {https://rmdopen.bmj.com/content/7/2/e001601.full.pdf}, journal = {RMD Open} }