Hepatitis B Hinders Response to Treatment in Rheumatoid Arthritis

Jun 06, 2018

Consider screening patients with RA for HBV exposure/infection as a part of the pretreatment assessment.

Reference1. Chen YL, Lin JZ, Mo YQ, et al. Deleterious role of hepatitis B virus infection in therapeutic response among patients with rheumatoid arthritis in a clinical practice setting: a case-control study. Arthritis Res Ther. 2018;20:81. doi: 10.1186/s13075-018-1548-5.

Chen and fellow researchers in China found that chronic hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection may lead to more rapid radiographic progression and poorer clinical responsiveness in patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA).¹

Scroll through the slides for the details of their study and the take-home messages for clinicians.

(Image credit: ©vitstudio/Shutterstock.com)

Hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection affects more than 3% of the world’s population.

HBsAg, hepatitis B surface antigen.

The study had a total of 128 matched control subjects.

EULAR, European League Against Rheumatism.

Significantly higher percentages of patients in the chronic hepatitis B group took sulfasalazine (SSZ) and hydroxychloroquine (HCQ), compared with the control group (44% vs 2% and 75% vs 11%, respectively; both P < .001). A significantly smaller proportion of patients with chronic hepatitis B took leflunomide (LEF) (16% vs 84%; P < .001).

A greater proportion of patients with chronic hepatitis B used the regimen of methotrexate (MTX) combined with SSZ and HCQ, compared with control subjects (34% vs 1%; P < .001), while a smaller percentage of patients with chronic hepatitis B used the regimen of MTX combined with LEF (9% vs 72%; P < .001).

OR, odds ratio.