Spondyloarthritis & psoriatic arthritis
Effect of Early Tumor Necrosis Factor Inhibitor Initiation on Chronic Opioid Use in Individuals With Axial Spondyloarthritis
Main finding · Chronic opioid use (≥90 days' prescription)Result — go to the resultrisk 17% higher 95% CI 1.06–1.28Authors' conclusion
Early TNFi initiation was not associated with reduced risk of chronic opioid use versus later or no TNFi initiation.
Study context
- Population
- Adults aged 18 to 65 years with axial spondyloarthritis (axSpA), Merative MarketScan Commercial Database (mean age 42 years; 50% female)after propensity score (PS) matching
- Participants
- 8,508 adults
- Exposure
- Early tumor necrosis factor inhibitor (TNFi) initiation vs no TNFi start within 6 months
- Early TNFi initiatorsn = 4,254
- Comparatorsn = 4,254reference
- Outcome
- Chronic opioid use (≥90 days' prescription)
Methodological detailstime-stratified, propensity score-matched 1:1, administrative claims data, Cox proportional hazard models
- Time-stratified
- Propensity score-matched 1:1
- Administrative claims data
- Cox proportional hazard models
Main finding
As reported in the abstract
risk
17% higher
95% CI 1.06–1.28
By group
- Chronic opioid use overall
- 20.9%
Observational data: associations, not effects.
Further findings
| Outcome | HR (95% CI) | |
|---|---|---|
| Chronic opioid use, stratified by prior opioid use (within 12 months)Early TNFi initiatorsvs ComparatorsOpioid-naive stratum | 1.96 (1.41–2.74) | |
| Chronic opioid use, stratified by prior opioid use (within 12 months)Early TNFi initiatorsvs ComparatorsOpioid-experienced stratum | 1.06 (0.96–1.17) | |
| 0.20.5125Hazard ratio (log scale) |
Original publication
Effect of Early Tumor Necrosis Factor Inhibitor Initiation on Chronic Opioid Use in Individuals With Axial Spondyloarthritis. Arthritis Care Res (Hoboken). Published 11 November 2025. doi:10.
Composed by AI from the published abstract and checked against it. How Briefs are made →