Covid-19 infection rates have been low in patients with rheumatic diseases, with a majority of infected patients reporting mild illness according to a new study presented at ACR Convergence, the American College of Rheumatology's annual meeting.

“Many patients with rheumatic disease are treated with immunosuppressant medications that leave them more susceptible to infection,” according to an official release. Researchers wanted to better understand the vulnerability of such patients to Covid-19.

"When the pandemic started, there was concern on whether to continue or hold immune therapies among patients with rheumatic diseases because they are at increased risk for infection," said the study's co-author, Akhil Sood, MD, an internal medicine resident in rheumatology at the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston.

"We were interested to see if these patients are at an increased risk for COVID-19 infection. If they were to become infected, we wanted to know the severity of their clinical course. This can help us to determine whether it is safe to continue or hold immune therapies in the setting of Covid-19 infection," Sood said.

Researchers searched for studies related to Covid-19 outcomes in patients with rheumatic diseases in PubMed/Medline and Scopus.

They then extracted demographic data and patients' use of biologics or targeted therapy with Janus kinase (JAK) inhibitors. This was used to measure Covid-19 outcomes such as hospitalization, admission to an ICU and death.

Data observations

Based on the review of the data of 6,095 patients with rheumatic diseases from eight observational cohort studies, researchers found that 2 per cent of the patients were positive or highly suspicious for Covid-19.

Among the patients infected with the virus, 73 per cent of patients were never hospitalized. Thirteen patients who were hospitalized out of the 6,095 patients analysed, were admitted to an ICU and four patients died.

However, further studies are required for definite conclusions.

"In our analysis, there was a small number of patients on biologic and targeted therapies to make definite conclusions on whether to continue or hold therapies," said Sood. "We are waiting for additional extensive studies that include more patients with rheumatic disease on biologic and targeted therapies. Another area of interest for us is examining risk factors for severe Covid-19 infection in patients with rheumatic disease. We hope this can help us identify which patients to closely monitor and possibly develop precautions to mitigate their risk."

Related Topics
comment COMMENT NOW