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Significant advancements have been made in the discovery of gene signatures, biomarkers, novel therapeutic targets, diagnostic tools, and risk factors that predict the development of rheumatoid arthritis (RA). There is also overwhelming evidence that treatment of early RA can prevent or alter disease progression and potentially lead to drug-free remission. Despite these advancements, there are significant challenges to identifying patients at risk of developing RA on a global scale. This commentary provides an overview of challenges related to the primary, secondary, and tertiary prevention of RA in the context of health care systems. Patient-level, provider-level, and health care system–level barriers to implementing prevention strategies are discussed. Strategies and opportunities to address these challenges, on both a local and global scale, are reported. Benefits as well as potential negative consequences that may be associated with implementation of prevention strategies for RA are discussed in the context of individuals and public health.

Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) and ankylosing spondylitis (AS) are associated with mental illness. The risk of serious mental illness, including deliberate self-harm (DSH), in these conditions is not well known. We aimed to determine if RA or AS independently increases the risk for DSH. We conducted retrospective, population-based cohort studies using administrative health data for the province of Ontario, Canada between April 1, 2002 and March 31, 2014. Individuals with incident RA (N = 53,240) or AS (N = 13,964) were separately matched 1:4 by age, sex, and year with comparators without RA or AS. The outcome was a first DSH attempt identified using emergency department data. We estimated hazard ratios (HR) and 95% confidence intervals (95% CI) for risk of DSH in RA and AS versus comparators, adjusting for demographic, clinical and health service utilization variables. Subjects with AS were significantly more likely to self-harm (crude incidence rate [IR] of 0.68/1,000 person years [PY] versus 0.32/1,000 PY in comparators), with an adjusted HR of 1.59 (95% CI 1.15 to 2.21). DSH was increased for RA subjects (IR 0.35/1,000 PY) versus comparators (IR 0.24/1,000 PY) only before (HR 1.43, 95% CI 1.16 to 1.74), but not after covariate adjustment (HR 1.07, 95% CI 0.86 to 1.33). AS carries an increased risk for DSH but no such risk was observed in RA. Further evaluation of at-risk AS subjects is needed, including the longitudinal effects of disease and arthritis therapies on self-harm behaviour. This will inform whether specific risk-reduction strategies for DSH in inflammatory arthritis are needed.

Background: Vaccination reduces Coronavirus disease-19 (COVID-19) infection severity. We evaluated COVID-19 vaccine uptake and effectiveness in people with immune mediated inflammatory diseases (pIMIDs) versus the general population. Methods: Using population-based administrative health records, we identified cohorts between 2004 and 2022 with an IMID (rheumatoid arthritis n = 10,405, systemic autoimmune rheumatic disease n = 5888, inflammatory bowel disease n = 7911, multiple sclerosis n = 3665, psoriasis n = 23,948) who were matched (1:5) by age, sex, and region to general population comparators (n = 243,490) without these IMIDs. Between 1 January 2021 and 31 March 2022, rates of COVID-19 vaccine administration, hospitalizations with COVID-19 (Hosp-C), and all-cause mortality were assessed amongst pIMIDs and comparators using multivariable models. Results: More pIMIDs were vaccinated than comparators (87.3% vs. 84.7%, p < 0.0001). IMID diagnosis, increasing age, female sex, higher socioeconomic status, urban residence, immunotherapy use, and comorbidities were associated with increased odds of receiving at least two vaccine doses. pIMIDs had higher rates of Hosp-C (79 per 100,000, 95% confidence interval (CI) 77.8–80.2) than comparators (51 per 100,000, 95% CI 50.5–51.3; rate ratio 1.55; 95% CI 1.53, 1.58) and greater mortality [pIMID 1758 deaths, 3.61%; comparators (6346 deaths, 2.61%), RR 1.39 95% CI 1.32, 1.46)]. In multivariable analyses, vaccinated status was associated with less Hosp-C (OR 0.27, CI 0.23, 0.32) and death (HR 0.27 CI 0.24, 0.29); the association did not differ between IMID and comparator groups. Conclusions: Although COVID-19 vaccination reduced the risk of Hosp-C and death in both pIMIDs and comparators, pIMIDs remained at higher risk for both. Since SARS-CoV-2 is now endemic, these findings may inform ongoing vaccination recommendations.

Background: Few studies have assessed the accuracy of administrative data for identifying multiple sclerosis (MS) patients. Objectives: To validate administrative data algorithms for MS, and describe the burden and epidemiology over time in Ontario, Canada. Methods: We employed a validated search strategy to identify all MS patients within electronic medical records, to identify patients with and without MS (reference standard). We then developed and validated different combinations of administrative data for algorithms. The most accurate algorithm was used to estimate the burden and epidemiology of MS over time. Results: The accuracy of the algorithm of one hospitalisation or five physician billings over 2 years provided both high sensitivity (84%) and positive predictive value (86%). Application of this algorithm to provincial data demonstrated an increasing cumulative burden of MS, from 13,326 patients (0.14%) in 2000 to 24,647 patients in 2010 (0.22%). Age-and-sex standardised prevalence increased from 133.9 to 207.3 MS patients per 100,000 persons in the population, from 2000 – 2010. During this same period, age-and-sex-standardised incidence varied from 17.9 to 19.4 patients per 100,000 persons. Conclusions: MS patients can be accurately identified from administrative data. Our findings illustrated a rising prevalence of MS over time. MS incidence rates also appear to be rising since 2009.

Background We have previously validated administrative data algorithms to identify patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) using rheumatology clinic records as the reference standard. Here we reassessed the accuracy of the algorithms using primary care records as the reference standard. Methods We performed a retrospective chart abstraction study using a random sample of 7500 adult patients under the care of 83 family physicians contributing to the Electronic Medical Record Administrative data Linked Database (EMRALD) in Ontario, Canada. Using physician-reported diagnoses as the reference standard, we computed and compared the sensitivity, specificity, and predictive values for over 100 administrative data algorithms for RA case ascertainment. Results We identified 69 patients with RA for a lifetime RA prevalence of 0.9%. All algorithms had excellent specificity (>97%). However, sensitivity varied (75-90%) among physician billing algorithms. Despite the low prevalence of RA, most algorithms had adequate positive predictive value (PPV; 51-83%). The algorithm of “[1 hospitalization RA diagnosis code] or [3 physician RA diagnosis codes with ≥1 by a specialist over 2 years]” had a sensitivity of 78% (95% CI 69–88), specificity of 100% (95% CI 100–100), PPV of 78% (95% CI 69–88) and NPV of 100% (95% CI 100–100). Conclusions Administrative data algorithms for detecting RA patients achieved a high degree of accuracy amongst the general population. However, results varied slightly from our previous report, which can be attributed to differences in the reference standards with respect to disease prevalence, spectrum of disease, and type of comparator group.

We sought to characterized patterns of aPL testing in a large general population sample from the United States. Using Truven Health MarketScan laboratory data from 2010–2015 we identified individuals tested for lupus anticoagulant(LA), anti-cardiolipin (aCL), and anti-beta2-glycoprotein1(aGP1). Our research was approved by the McGill institutional review board (A04-M47-12B). We identified 33,456 individuals with at least one aPL test. Among these, only 6,391 (19%) had all three tests (LA, aCL, aGP1) performed. Confirmatory aPL testing was performed at least 12 weeks later in 77%, 45%, and 41% of initially positive LA, aCL, and aGP1, respectively. Of those re-tested after ≥12 weeks, only 255 (10.6%) were found to have a confirmatory positive aPL test. These findings highlight that aPL testing may often be incompletely performed. Further investigations will be required to better understand the low rate of a confirmatory positive aPL test ≥12 weeks after the initial test.

Background Rheumatoid Arthritis (RA) is a chronic inflammatory disease that is primarily diagnosed and managed by rheumatologists; however, it is often primary care providers who first encounter RA-related symptoms. This study developed and validated a case definition for RA using national surveillance data in primary care settings. Methods This cross-sectional validation study used structured electronic medical record (EMR) data from the Canadian Primary Care Sentinel Surveillance Network (CPCSSN). Based on the reference set generated by EMR reviews by five experts, three machine learning steps: ‘bag-of-words’ approach to feature generation, feature reduction using a feature importance measure coupled with recursive feature elimination and clustering, and classification using tree-based methods (Decision Tree, Random Forest, and Extreme Gradient Boosting). The three tree-based algorithms were compared to identify the procedure that generated the optimal evaluation metrics. Nested cross-validation was used to allow evaluation and comparison and tuning of models simultaneously. Results Of 1.3 million patients from seven Canadian provinces, 5,600 people aged 19 + were randomly selected. The optimal algorithm for selecting RA cases was generated by the XGBoost classification method. Based on feature importance scores for features in the XGBoost output, a human-readable case definition was created, where RA cases are identified when there are at least 2 occurrences of text “rheumatoid” in any billing, encounter diagnosis, or health condition table of the patient chart. The final case definition had sensitivity of 81.6% (95% CI, 75.6–86.4), specificity of 98.0% (95% CI, 97.4–98.5), positive predicted value of 76.3% (95% CI, 70.1–81.5), and negative predicted value of 98.6% (95% CI, 98.0-98.6). Conclusion A case definition for RA in using primary care EMR data was developed based off the XGBoost algorithm. With high validity metrics, this case definition is expected to be a reliable tool for future epidemiological research and surveillance investigating the management of RA in CPCSSN dataset.

Background and aims There is an incomplete understanding of the full safety profiles of repeated COVID-19 vaccinations in patients with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD). Among individuals with IBD, we assessed whether COVID-19 vaccines were associated with serious adverse events of special interest (AESI) and health care utilization [all-cause hospitalizations, Emergency Department (ED) visits, gastroenterology visits, IBD-related visits]. Methods Using comprehensive administrative health data from Ontario, Canada, adults with IBD who received at least one COVID-19 vaccine from December 2020-January 2022 were included. Self-controlled case series analyses were conducted to evaluate the relative incidence rates of AESI and health care utilization outcomes across post-vaccination risk and control periods. Results Among 88,407 IBD patients, 99.7% received mRNA vaccines and 75.9% received  ≥  3 doses. Relative to control periods, we did not detect an increase in AESI. IBD patients had fewer all-cause hospitalizations during post-vaccination risk periods. Patients experienced more all-cause ED visits after dose 2 [Relative Incidence (RI):1.08(95%CI:1.04–1.12)] but fewer visits after doses 3 [RI:0.85 (95%CI:0.81–0.90)] and 4 [RI:0.73 (95%CI:0.57–0.92)]. There was no increase in gastroenterologist visits or IBD-related health care utilization post-vaccination. There were fewer IBD-related hospitalizations after dose 1 [RI:0.84 (95%CI:0.72–0.98)] and 3 [RI:0.63 (95%CI:0.52–0.76)], fewer IBD-related ED visits after dose 3 [RI:0.81 (95%CI:0.71–0.91)] and 4 [RI:0.55 (95%CI:0.32–0.96)], and fewer outpatient visits after dose 2 [RI:0.91 (95%CI:0.90–0.93)] and 3 [RI:0.87 (95%CI:0.86–0.89)]. Conclusion This population-based study did not detect increased AESI, all-cause or IBD-related health care utilization following COVID-19 vaccination, suggesting a lack of association between vaccination and increased disease activity.

Introduction Use of disease-modifying anti-rheumatic drugs (DMARDs) in rheumatoid arthritis (RA) may prevent joint damage and potentially reduce joint replacement surgeries. We assessed the association between RA drug use and joint replacement in Quebec, Canada. Methods A cohort of new-onset RA patients was identified from Quebec’s physician billing and hospitalization databases from 2002–2011. The outcome was defined using procedure codes submitted by orthopedic surgeons. Medication use was obtained from pharmacy databases. We used alternative Cox regression models with time-dependent variables measuring the cumulative effects of past use during different time windows (one model focussing on the first year after cohort entry) for methotrexate (MTX), and other DMARDs. Models were adjusted for baseline sociodemographics, co-morbidity and prior health service use, time-dependent cumulative use of other drugs (anti-tumor necrosis factor [anti-TNF] agents, other biologics, cyclooxygenase-2 inhibitors [COXIBs], nonselective nonsteroidal antiinflammatory drugs [NSAIDs], and systemic steroids), and markers of disease severity. Results During follow-up, 608 joint replacements occurred among 11,333 patients (median follow-up: 4.6 years). The best-fitting model relied on the cumulative early use (within the first year after cohort entry) of MTX and of other DMARDs, with an interaction between MTX and other DMARDs. In this model, greater exposure within the first year, to either MTX (adjusted hazard ratio, HR = 0.95 per 1 month, 95 % confidence interval, 95 % CI 0.93-0.97) or other DMARDs (HR = 0.97, 95 % CI 0.95-0.99) was associated with longer time to joint replacement. Conclusions Our results suggest that longer exposure to either methotrexate (MTX) or other DMARDs within the first year after RA diagnosis is associated with longer time to joint replacement surgery.

Background: Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) and ankylosing spondylitis (AS) are associated with mental illness. Whether acute mental health (MH) service utilization (i.e. emergency visits or hospitalizations) is increased in RA or AS is not known. Methods: Two population-based cohorts were created where individuals with RA (n = 53,240) or AS (n = 13,964) were each matched by age, sex, and year to unaffected comparators (2002–2016). Incidence rates per 1000 person-years (PY) were calculated for a first MH emergency department (ED) presentation or MH hospitalization. Hazard ratios (HR) and 95% confidence intervals (CI) were calculated, adjusting for demographic, clinical, and health service use variables. Results: Individuals with RA had higher rates of ED visits [6.59/1000 person-years (PY) versus 4.39/1000 PY in comparators] and hospitalizations for MH (3.11/1000 PY versus 1.80/1000 PY in comparators). Higher rates of ED visits (7.92/1000 PY versus 5.62/1000 PY in comparators) and hospitalizations (3.03/1000 PY versus 1.94/1000 PY in comparators) were also observed in AS. Overall, RA was associated with a 34% increased risk for MH hospitalization (HR 1.34, 95% CI 1.22–1.47) and AS was associated with a 36% increased risk of hospitalization (HR 1.36, 95% CI 1.12–1.63). The risk of ED presentation was attenuated, but remained significant, after adjustment in both RA (HR 1.08, 95% CI 1.01–1.15) and AS (HR 1.14, 95% CI 1.02–1.28). Conclusions: RA and AS are both independently associated with a higher rate and risk of acute ED presentations and hospitalizations for mental health conditions. These findings underscore the need for routine evaluation of MH as part of the management of chronic inflammatory arthritis. Additional research is needed to identify the underlying individual characteristics, as well as system-level variation, which may explain these differences, and to help plan interventions to make MH service use more responsive to the needs of individuals living with RA and AS.