Among women with rheumatoid arthritis (RA), initiation of biologic disease-modifying antirheumatic drugs (DMARDs) was associated with a numerically, but not statistically significant, increase in the risk of high-grade cervical dysplasia or cervical cancer versus non-biologics. This according to a study of 14,729 pairs of biologic and nonbiologic DMARD initiators found in Medicaid data and 7,358 such pairs from a commercial database. Researchers found:

• During 73,388 person-years of active treatment with either biologic or nonbiologic DMARDs, 95 cases of high-grade cervical dysplasia or cervical cancer occurred.

• Hazard ratio (HR) of high-grade cervical dysplasia or cervical cancer associated with biologic DMARD was 1.25 in Medicaid and 1.63 in the commercial cohort, for a pooled HR of 1.32.

• The rate of gynecological procedures involving the uterine cervix was not different between the 2 cohorts (RR=0.96).

Citation: Kim SC, Schneeweiss S, Liu J, et al. Biologic disease-modifying antirheumatic drugs and risk of high-grade cervical dysplasia and cervical cancer in rheumatoid arthritis: A cohort study. [Published online ahead of print March 25, 2016]. Arthritis Rheumatol. doi:10.1002/art.39689.