Glucocorticoid exposure and the risk of serious infections in rheumatoid arthritis: a marginal structural model application.

ABSTRACT:

Objective

Observational studies have reported an increased risk of infections associated with glucocorticoids in RA, not supported by evidence from randomized controlled trials. Inappropriately accommodating time-varying exposure and confounding in observational studies might explain the conflicting results. Therefore, we compared the incidence of serious infections between different oral glucocorticoid dose patterns over three years in a prospective inception cohort, adjusting for time-varying confounders in marginal structural models.

Methods

We included 9654 newly diagnosed RA patients from the Swedish Rheumatology Quality Register between 2007-2018 and followed them for three years after the first rheumatology visit. Follow-up was divided into 90-day periods. A mean oral

SUBMITTER: Barbulescu A 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10547528 | biostudies-literature | 2023 Oct

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature