Risk of hospitalized infections in older elderly patients with rheumatoid arthritis treated with tocilizumab or other biological/targeted synthetic disease-modifying antirheumatic drugs: Evaluation of data from a Japanese claims database

Objective We compared the incidence rates of hospitalized infections (HIs) between tocilizumab (TCZ) and other biological/targeted synthetic disease-modifying antirheumatic drugs (b/tsDMARDs) in adults aged ≥75 years with rheumatoid arthritis (RA). Methods We used a Japanese claims database from Medical Data Vision Co., Ltd (Tokyo, Japan) to perform a retrospective longitudinal population-based study in patients with RA who were prescribed b/tsDMARDs between 2014 and 2019. We calculated adjusted risk ratios (aRRs) for HIs in three age groups ( Results Of 5506 patients, 2265 (41.1%) were Conclusion In patients with RA aged ≥75 years, b/tsDMARDs have a similar risk of HIs to tocilizumab except for etanercept.