Background The number of biologic drugs with indication in inflammatory arthopathies is still limited. Because of this we should understand which factors can predict the time of permanence with these drugs.

Purpose To evaluate the time of permanence in second or successive lines of treatments with anti-TNF drugs versus other biological drugs in patients with inflammatory arthropathies.

Material and methods We designed a retrospective descriptive cohort study, developed in a tertiary general hospital.

We included adult patients diagnosed with inflammatory arthropathies, treated with anti-TNF or other biological drugs in second or successive lines.

We excluded patients who, at the end of the follow-up, continued the treatment with the same drug, suspensions due to other reasons than loss of effectiveness and retreatments with the same biological drug.

Study variables: sex, age, diagnosis, line of treatment with biological drug, pretreatment with anti-TNF drugs, medication under study, dose schedule and concomitant treatment (immunomodulators or corticosteroids).

The time of permanence was calculated with the difference between the date of the beginning and the date of the ending of the treatment, and compared between anti-TNF and other biological drugs.

Results Fifty-two patients (33 females) were included, with a median of 52 (15.5) years; 24 (46%) suffered from rheumatoid arthritis, 16 (31%) psoriatic arthritis and 12 (23%) had ankylosing spondylitis.

73.1% (38/52) of the patients were treated in second lines, 23.1% (12/52) in third and 3.9% (2/52) in fourth, all of them after a previous treatment with anti-TNF.

The drugs studied were: adalimumab (15/52), golimumab (13/52), etanercept (9/52), abatacept (5/52), tocilizumab (3/52) and between others (7/52). All dosage schedules followed the official bibliography, 65.4% of them combined with immunomodulators (34/52) and/or corticosteroides in 38.5% (20/52).

The median time of permanence with anti-TNF was 9.6 (22.6) months (n=39), while for other biological drugs it was 14.3 (20.9) months (n=13), with no statistically significant differences between both groups (p=0.985, HR=1 (0.5; 1.9)).

Conclusion In our centre, the time of permanence in second or successive lines of treatment with anti-TNF drugs or other biological drugs is very similar in patients with inflammatory arthropathies, who have already been treated with other anti-TNF drugs in the first line.

No conflict of interest