Among patients with COPD and rheumatoid arthritis, Orencia (abatacept) did not increase risk of adverse respiratory events compared to similar therapies, according to a study in Seminars in Arthritis and Rheumatism reported by Medpage Today.
Compared with patients receiving other biologic agents, RA patients with COPD receiving abatacept were not at greater risk for an acute exacerbation of COPD requiring hospitalization, with a hazard ratio of 0.60 (95% CI 0.32-1.11), according to Samy Suissa, MD, of McGill University in Montreal, and colleagues.
Nor did the abatacept patients have an elevated risk for a combined endpoint of hospitalized COPD exacerbation, bronchitis, or hospitalized pneumonia/influenza, with an adjusted hazard ratio of 0.87 (95% CI 0.68-1.12), the researchers reported online in Seminars in Arthritis & Rheumatism.
