Association between disease-modifying antirheumatic drugs for rheumatoid arthritis and risk of incident dementia: a systematic review with meta-analysis
Authors' conclusion
Biological DMARDs for RA are associated with decreased dementia risk, while protective effect is not observed in conventional synthetic DMARDs.
Study context
- Population
- Patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) in observational studies (PubMed, EMBASE, Cochrane Library)
- Participants
- 940,442 patients14 studies
- Comparison
- bDMARDs vs csDMARDs; csDMARDs vs non-users of disease-modifying antirheumatic drugs (DMARDs)
- Outcome
- Incident dementia
Methodological detailsGRADE certainty of evidence
- GRADE certainty of evidence
Pooled result
As reported in the abstract
Relative risk (95% CI)
bDMARDsvs csDMARDs
0.76(0.72–0.80)
TNF inhibitorsvs csDMARDs
0.76(0.71–0.82)
Non-TNF biologicsvs csDMARDs
0.76(0.70–0.83)
Further pooled results
Incident dementia by type of tumour necrosis factor (TNF) inhibitor (subgroup)
| RR (95% CI) | P value | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| Etanercept | 0.58 (0.53–0.65) | p value between groups=0.002 | |
| Adalimumab | 0.65 (0.59–0.72) | p value between groups=0.002 | |
| Infliximab | 0.80 (0.72–0.88) | p value between groups=0.002 | |
| 0.512Relative risk (log scale) |
| Outcome | RR (95% CI) | |
|---|---|---|
| Incident dementia, csDMARDs vs non-userscsDMARDsvs Non-users | 0.84 (0.59–1.20) | |
| Incident dementia, csDMARDs vs non-usersMTXvs Non-users | 0.78 (0.54–1.12) | |
| Incident dementia, csDMARDs vs non-usersHCQvs Non-users | 0.95 (0.63–1.44) | |
| Incident dementia, csDMARDs vs non-usersSSZvs Non-users | 1.27 (1.06–1.50) | |
| 0.512Relative risk (log scale) |
Incident dementia by type of TNF inhibitor (subgroup)
- Significant subgroup effect among different types of TNF inhibitors
Parts of this Brief are withheld: the automatic checks could not confirm them against the abstract.
Original publication
Association between disease-modifying antirheumatic drugs for rheumatoid arthritis and risk of incident dementia: a systematic review with meta-analysis. RMD Open. Published 27 February 2024. doi:10.
Composed by AI from the published abstract and checked against it. How Briefs are made →