Clinical outcomes of patients with giant cell arteritis treated with tocilizumab in real-world clinical practice: decreased incidence of new visual manifestations

Table 4 Disease flares in patients with and without PMR symptoms at diagnosis

	Patients with PMR symptoms at diagnosis (n = 32)		Patients without PMR symptoms at diagnosis (n = 28)
	Before TCZ initiation	After TCZ initiation	Before TCZ initiation	After TCZ initiation
Follow-up time, median (IQR), years	0.7 (0.2–1.9)	0.6 (0.4–1.6)	0.6 (0.2–1.4)	0.5 (0.3–1.5)
Rate of flares per year*			1.6 (0.8–3.2)
Rate (95% CI)	1.3 (0.8–2.1)	0.5 (0.3–1.1)		0.7 (0.3–1.7)
Rate ratio (95% CI)		0.4 (0.2–0.7)		0.4 (0.2–0.9)
p value		0.003		0.03
Patients with ≥ 1 flare, n (%)	24 (75.0)	11 (34.4)	19 (67.9)	7 (25.0)
With PMR symptoms^†	21 (65.6)	8 (25.0)	4 (14.3)	2 (7.1)
Without PMR symptoms^†	3 (9.4)	3 (9.4)	15 (53.6)	5 (17.9)
Total no. of flares	60	23	42	14
With PMR symptoms, n (%)^†	50 (83.3)	18 (78.3)	7 (16.7)	3 (21.4)
Without PMR symptoms, n (%)^†	10 (16.7)	5 (21.7)	35 (83.3)	11 (78.6)

GCA giant cell arteritis, IQR interquartile range, PMR polymyalgia rheumatica, TCZ tocilizumab
*Rates were estimated from a Poisson regression model with ongoing treatment (TCZ and glucocorticoid combinations), age, smoking history, and new or relapsing GCA as covariates, and random patient effect
^†Symptoms were after GCA diagnosis. Percentage of flares is out of the total number of flares

ISSN: 1478-6362