The following is a summary of “Sex differences in patient-reported outcome measures and the association with clinical factors in axial spondyloarthritis patients treated with tumour necrosis factor inhibitors,” published in the July 2024 issue of Rheumatology by Hellamand et al.

Patients with axial spondyloarthritis (axSpA) who started tumor necrosis factor inhibitors (TNFi) therapy experienced worse patient-reported outcomes. Baseline characteristics, such as sex, may have contributed to these differences.

Researchers conducted a retrospective study investigating sex differences in patient-reported outcome measures (PROMs) among patients with axSpA initiating the first TNFi and identifying factors contributing to these disparities over the follow-up. 

They included data from 15 EuroSpA registries, consisting of patients with axSpA initiating the first TNFi, with ≥2 measurements for each analyzed PROM (BASDAI and BASFI, scale 0–100) taken at any period. Linear mixed models were used to examine sex changes in PROMs over 24 months and to analyze how baseline characteristics were related to the observed sex differences. 

The results showed 13,102 patients (38% women) in the BASDAI analyses and 10,623 (38% women) in the BASFI analyses. At follow-up, mean sex differences in BASDAI increased from 4.3 units at baseline (95% CI, 3.5–5.1) to 8.0 (7.2–8.8) at 6 months, and in BASFI from 2.2 (1.4–3.1) to 4.6 (3.6–5.5), with consistently worse scores in women.

They concluded that in patients with axSpA initiating the first TNFi, baseline sex differences in BASDAI and BASFI increased 2-fold after 6 months of cure and persisted, with worse scores in women.

Source: academic.oup.com/rheumatology/advance-article-abstract/doi/10.1093/rheumatology/keae370/7718502