The risk of acute coronary syndrome in rheumatoid arthritis in relation to tumour necrosis factor inhibitors and the risk in the general population: a national cohort study

Table 5 Sensitivity analyses adjusted for pharmacological treatment in rheumatoid arthritis patients included 1 January 2006 and later ^a

Risk window	TNFi-exposed RA patients ACS/person-years (N = 4,385)	Biologic-naïve RA patients ACS/person-years (N = 13,155)	General population comparator ACS/person-years (N = 21,925)	TNFi-exposed vs. biologic-naïve RA patients		TNFi-exposed RA patients vs. general population comparator HR ^b(95% CI)	Biologic-naïve RA patients vs. general population comparator HR ^b(95% CI)
Risk window	TNFi-exposed RA patients ACS/person-years (N = 4,385)	Biologic-naïve RA patients ACS/person-years (N = 13,155)	General population comparator ACS/person-years (N = 21,925)	HR ^b(95% CI)	HR ^c(95% CI)
Ever exposed to TNFi	46/10,116	163/26,398	162/50,692	0.77 (0.55 to 1.07)	0.72 (0.51 to 1.02)	1.45 (1.05 to 2.02)	1.83 (1.47 to 2.27)
Actively on TNFi	31/8,427	132/21,928	128/41,757	0.64 (0.43 to 0.95)	0.64 (0.43 to 0.96)	1.21 (0.82 to 1.79)	1.85 (1.45 to 2.36)
Short-term exposure	22/5,986	107/18,229	102/33,574	0.69 (0.44 to 1.09)	0.64 (0.40 to 1.03)	1.27 (0.80 to 2.02)	1.83 (1.39 to 2.40)

^aACS, Acute coronary syndrome; HR, Hazard ratio; RA, Rheumatoid arthritis; TNFi, Tumour necrosis factor inhibitor. ^bAdjusted for age, sex and county of residence. ^cAdjusted for sex; age; county of residence; year of inclusion; diabetes mellitus (treatment and/or previous diagnosis); hypertension (treatment and/or previous diagnosis); previous diagnosis of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, cerebrovascular disease or other atherosclerotic disease; previous hospitalization for infection; total number of days in hospital during 10 years prior to inclusion; RA disease duration more than 10 years; sick leave; disability pension; previous joint surgery; education level; and dispensed pharmacological treatment within 6 months prior to inclusion (acetylsalicylic acid, corticosteroids, disease-modifying antirheumatic drugs, lipid-lowering drugs, nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs and coxibs). The frequency of the covariates in the RA cohorts is reported in Additional file 2.

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