Objective. To determine the risk of tuberculosis (TB) among a cohort of patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) in Quebec and assess whether this risk is associated with exposure to nonbiologic disease-modifying antirheumatic drugs (DMARDs). Methods. We studied a cohort of patients with RA identified from the Quebec provincial physician billing and hospitalization databases for 1980 -2003. TB incidence rates were determined for the period 1992-2003 and compared with the general population, standardized for age and sex using the standardized incidence ratio (SIR). Conditional logistic regression was used in a nested case-control analysis to estimate the rate ratio (RR) of TB related to nonbiologic DMARD exposure during the year before the index date. Results. Of the 24,282 patients with RA in the cohort, 50 cases of TB were identified. The standardized incidence rate was 45.8 cases per 100,000 person-years compared with 4.2 cases per 100,000 person-years in the general population of Quebec (SIR 10.9, 95% confidence interval [95% CI] 7.9 -15.0). The adjusted RR of TB was 2.4 (95% CI 1.1-5.4) with corticosteroid use and 3.0 (95% CI 1.6 -5.8) with nonbiologic DMARD use. Conclusion. The age-and sex-standardized incidence rate of TB in RA patients is 10 times that of the general population. At least some of this risk may be related to nonbiologic DMARD and corticosteroid therapies. Our data support the role of TB screening before initiation of any immunosuppressive therapy.

The identified predictors of CD explained 20% of the regional variance in the incidence rate of CD in the Québec population. Other factors such as genetic susceptibility to CD or the effect of an environmental cause should be taken into consideration in the models to explain the residual variance.

In Canada, infectious exposure during pregnancy is a strong risk factor for microcephaly, and affected infants are at higher risk of poor birth outcomes. Better monitoring of microcephaly is needed in the event that Zika or other novel viruses affect future risk.

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The cagE and vacA S1 genotypes are more prevalent in patients with peptic ulcer or gastric cancer, suggesting a potential function in virulence for these genes. However, the vacA S1 genotype was also more prevalent in controls than GERD, suggesting a potential protective effect against GERD.