OP0034 DOES THE RISK OF VENOUS THROMBOEMBOLISM VARY WITH DISEASE ACTIVITY IN RHEUMATOID ARTHRITIS?
Authors: V. Molander, H. Bower, J. Askling
Journal: Annals of the Rheumatic Diseases (2020)

Background: Patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) are at increased risk for venous thromboembolism (VTE), including deep vein thrombosis (DVT) and pulmonary embolism (PE) (1). Several established risk factors of VTE, such as age, immobilization and comorbid conditions, occur more often patients with RA (2). In addition, inflammation may in itself also increase VTE risk by upregulating procoagolatory factors and causing endothelial damage (3). Recent reports indicate an increased risk of VTE in RA patients treated with JAK-inhibitors (4), pointing to the need to better understand how inflammation measured as clinical RA disease activity influences VTE risk. Objectives: To investigate the relationship between clinical RA disease activity and incidence of VTE. Methods: Patients with RA were identified from the Swedish Rheumatology Quality Register (SRQ) between July 1 st 2006 and December 31 st 2017. Clinical rheumatology data for these patients were obtained from the visits recorded in SRQ, and linked to national registers capturing data on VTE events and comorbid conditions. For each such rheumatologist visit, we defined a one-year period after the visit and determined whether a VTE event had occurred within this period or not. A visit followed by a VTE event was categorized as a case, all other visits were used as controls. Each patient could contribute to several visits. The DAS28 score registered at the visit was stratified into remission (0-2.5) vs. low (2.6-3.1), moderate (3.2-5.1) and high (&gt;5.1) disease activity. Logistic regression with robust cluster standard errors was used to estimate the association between the DAS28 score and VTE. Results: We identified 46,311 patients with RA who contributed data from 320,094 visits. Among these, 2,257 visits (0.7% of all visits) in 1345 unique individuals were followed by a VTE within the one-year window. Of these, 1391 were DVT events and 866 were PE events. Figure 1 displays the absolute probabilities of a VTE in this one-year window, and odds ratios for VTE by each DAS28 category, using DAS28 remission as reference. The one-year risk of a VTE increased from 0.5% in patients in DAS28 remission, to 1.1% in patients with DAS28 high disease activity (DAS28 above 5.1). The age- and sex-adjusted odds ratio for a VTE event in highly active RA compared to RA in remission was 2.12 (95% CI 1.80-2.47). A different analysis, in which each patient could only contribute to one visit, yielded similar results. Figure 1. Odds ratios (OR) comparing the odds of VTE for DAS28 activity categories versus remission. Grey estimates are from unadjusted logistic regression models, black estimates are from logistic regression models adjusted for age and sex. Absolute one-year risk of VTE are estimated from unadjusted models. Conclusion: This study demonstrates a strong association between clinical RA inflammatory activity as measured through DAS28 and risk of VTE. Among patients with high disease activity one in a hundred will develop a VTE within the coming year. These findings highlight the need for proper VTE risk assessment in patients with active RA, and confirm that patients with highly active RA, such as those recruited to trials for treatment with new drugs, are already at particularly elevated risk of VTE. References: [1]Holmqvist et al. Risk of venous thromboembolism in patients with rheumatoid arthritis and association with disease duration and hospitalization. JAMA. 2012;308(13):1350-6. [2]Cushman M. Epidemiology and risk factors for venous thrombosis. Semin Hematol. 2007;44(2):62-9. [3]Xu J et al. Inflammation, innate immunity and blood coagulation. Hamostaseologie. 2010;30(1):5-6, 8-9. [4]FDA. Safety trial finds risk of blood clots in the lungs and death with higher dose of tofacitinib (Xeljanz, Xeljanz XR) in rheumatoid arthritis patients; FDA to investigate. 2019. Acknowledgments: Many thanks to all patients and rheumatologists persistently filling out the SRQ. Disclosure of Interests: Viktor Molander: None declared, Hannah Bower: None declared, Johan Askling Grant/research support from: JA acts or has acted as PI for agreements between Karolinska Institutet and the following entities, mainly in the context of the ARTIS national safety monitoring programme of immunomodulators in rheumatology: Abbvie, BMS, Eli Lilly, Merck, MSD, Pfizer, Roche, Samsung Bioepis, Sanofi, and UCB Pharma