Nonhealing femoral fractures are unusual adverse drug reactions associated with bisphosphonate use, as up to 26% of published cases of atypical femoral fractures exhibited delayed healing or nonhealing.

IntroductionImmune-mediated inflammatory diseases (IMIDs) cause significant impairment in quality of life. Although they share similar genetic factors, environmental precipitants, and pathophysiological mechanisms, there is little evidence on the risk of developing subsequent IMIDs after an initial IMID diagnosis. We sought to assess the risk of developing subsequent IMIDs among patients diagnosed with an initial IMID.MethodsThis retrospective matched cohort study used a large US commercial health insurance claims database (01/01/2006–09/30/2015). The risks of developing secondary IMIDs among patients aged 18–64 years with a diagnosis of one of nine IMIDs of interest (ankylosing spondylitis, celiac disease, hidradenitis suppurativa [HS], inflammatory bowel disease, lupus, psoriatic arthritis [PsA], psoriasis, rheumatoid arthritis, and uveitis) as identified from diagnosis codes on medical claims were compared with up to 1000 matched controls without the primary IMID using Cox proportional hazards models.ResultsAcross the nine IMIDs of interest, there were 398,935 unique case patients matched to 256,795,796 non-unique control patients. Case patients with an initial IMID had higher risks of developing each, any one, and any two of the other eight secondary IMIDs compared to their matched controls. Hazard ratios [95% confidence intervals] for the risk of developing any one secondary IMID ranged from 5.4 [5.0, 5.8] (initial IMID: HS) to 62.2 [59.9, 64.6] (initial IMID: PsA), and hazard ratios for developing any two secondary IMIDs ranged from 3.0 [2.3, 3.8] (HS) to 75.2 [69.3, 81.7] (PsA).ConclusionsThis study demonstrates that the risk of developing a second IMID is significantly higher for individuals who have already experienced a first IMID in a large and contemporary US claims database. Certain pairs of IMIDs co-occur more frequently than others. The risk of developing subsequent IMIDs may be an important consideration for clinicians when selecting treatment strategies.FundingAbbvie.Electronic Supplementary MaterialThe online version of this article (10.1007/s12325-019-00964-z) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

Background: The incidence of life-threatening toxicities such as Stevens-Johnson syndrome (SJS) and Toxic Epidermal Necrolysis (TEN) are inconsistently reported. The potential association of anticancer agents with SJS or TEN has not been systematically investigated. Methods: We searched the literature (Ovid:1950-June 2013 and PubMed:1948-June 2013) using terms for SJS/TEN and anticancer therapy. Primary case reports, case series, and clinical trials were included. Additionally, MedWatch, Food and Drug Administration Adverse Event Reporting System (FAERS), was searched (1968-August 2012) for SJS/TEN reports associated with anticancer therapies. Proportional reporting ratios (PRR>2, N>3) and empirical Bayes geometric mean (EBGM>2, N>3, lower 95% confidence interval (EBGM0.05 >2) were used as thresholds to constitute a signal of association between SJS/TEN and anticancer drugs. Results: There were 45 SJS and 37 TEN cases associated with 17 and 22 anticancer drugs in the literature, respectively. Among cases in FAERS, significant signals were associated with SJS for bendamustine and with TEN for bendamustine, busulfan, chlorambucil, fludarabine, lomustine, and procarbazine . Conclusion: Several drugs reported in published literature to be associated with SJS/TEN were not found to have significant signals in FAERS. Proactive pharmacovigilance to detect and define safety signals serves to assist oncology practitioners in the recognition of possible, yet uncommon, serious and/or life-threatening skin reactions.

IntroductionPatients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) who are treated with adalimumab (ADA) are offered a proprietary patient support program (PSP, AbbVie Care®). The main objective of this study was to examine the effectiveness of ADA on RA treatment course over time in the context of PSP utilization.MethodsPASSION was a 78-week post-marketing observational study of RA patients with an insufficient response to ≥1 DMARD newly initiating ADA in routine clinical care that was conducted in Europe, Israel, Mexico, Puerto Rico, and Australia. One prior biologic DMARD was allowed. The primary endpoint was percentage of patients achieving the minimal clinically important difference (MCID; improvement of ≥0.22 compared to baseline) in Health Assessment Questionnaire (HAQ) Disability Index (HAQ-DI) at week 78. Additionally, multiple clinical and patient-reported outcomes (PROs) were evaluated over time. Patients were categorized based on their participation in the PSP: ever (PSP users) vs. never (PSP non-users). Safety events were monitored throughout the study.ResultsOverall, 42.8% of PSP users achieved the MCID in HAQ-DI at week 78 (improvement of at least 0.22 compared to baseline). From 1025 enrolled, 48.7% of patients were PSP users while treated with ADA. The percentage of patients achieving MCID in the HAQ-DI was higher in PSP users vs. PSP non-users (48.1 vs. 37.8%) at week 78 (p < 0.001, NRI). Most of the studied clinical outcomes and PROs showed significant improvements (p < 0.05) from baseline to week 78 favoring PSP users over PSP non-users.ConclusionsIn patients with moderate-to-severe RA who initiated ADA, improvements in clinical, functional, and PROs were achieved in real-world settings with significantly greater improvements among PSP users in comparison with PSP non-users.FundingAbbVie. Trial registration: ClinicalTrials.gov identifier, NCT01383421.