Tumor necrosis factor (TNF) inhibitors for juvenile idiopathic arthritis-associated uveitis

BACKGROUND

Uveitis is the most common extra-articular manifestation of juvenile idiopathic arthritis (JIA) and a potentially sight-threatening condition characterized by intraocular inflammation. Current treatment for JIA-associated uveitis (JIA-U) is largely based on physician experience, observational evidence and consensus guidelines, resulting in considerable variations in practice.  OBJECTIVES: To evaluate the effectiveness and safety of tumor necrosis factor (TNF) inhibitors used for treatment of JIA-U.

SEARCH METHODS

We searched the Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials (CENTRAL); Ovid MEDLINE; Embase.com; PubMed; Latin American and Caribbean Health Sciences Literature Database (LILACS); ClinicalTrials.gov, and the World Health Organization (WHO) International Clinical Trials Registry Platform (ICTRP). We last searched the electronic databases on 3 February 2022.

SELECTION CRITERIA

We included randomized controlled trials (RCTs) comparing TNF inhibitors with placebo in participants with a diagnosis of JIA and uveitis who were aged 2 to 18 years old.

DATA COLLECTION AND ANALYSIS

We used standard Cochrane methodology and graded the certainty of the body of evidence for seven outcomes using the GRADE classification.

MAIN RESULTS

We included three RCTs with 134 participants. One study conducted in the USA randomized participants to etanercept or placebo (N = 12). Two studies, one conducted in the UK (N = 90) and one in France (N = 32), randomized participants to adalimumab or placebo. All studies were at low risk of bias. Initial pooled estimates suggested that TNF-inhibitors may result in little to no difference on treatment success defined as 0 to trace cells on Standardization of Uveitis Nomenclature (SUN)-grading; or two-step decrease in activity based on SUN grading (estimated risk ratio (RR) 0.66; 95% confidence interval (CI) 0.21 to 2.10; 2 studies; 43 participants; low-certainty evidence) or treatment failure defined as a two-step increase in activity based on SUN grading (RR 0.31; 95% CI 0.01 to 7.15; 1 study; 31 participants; low-certainty evidence). Further analysis using the individual trial definitions of treatment response and failure suggested a positive treatment effect of TNF inhibitors; a RR of treatment success of 2.60 (95% CI 1.30 to 5.20; 3 studies; 124 participants; low-certainty evidence), and RR of treatment failure of 0.23 (95% CI 0.11 to 0.50; 3 studies; 133 participants). Almost all the evidence was on adalimumab and the evidence on etanercept was very limited.  For secondary outcomes, one study suggests that adalimumab may have little to no effect on risk of recurrence after induction of remission at three months (RR 2.50, 95% CI 0.31 to 20.45; 90 participants; very low-certainty evidence) and visual acuity, but the evidence is very uncertain; mean difference in longitudinal logMAR score change over six months was -0.01 (95% CI -0.06 to 0.03) and -0.02 (95% CI -0.07 to 0.03) using the best and worst logMAR measurement, respectively (low-certainty evidence). Low-certainty evidence from one study suggested that adalimumab treatment results in reduction of topical steroid doses at six months (hazard ratio 3.58; 95% CI 1.24 to 10.32; 74 participants who took one or more topical steroid per day at baseline). Adverse events, including injection site reactions and infections, were more common in the TNF inhibitor group. Serious adverse events were uncommon.

AUTHORS' CONCLUSIONS

Adalimumab appears to increase the likelihood of treatment success and decrease the likelihood of treatment failure when compared with placebo. The evidence was less conclusive about a positive treatment effect with etanercept. Adverse events from JIA-U trials are in keeping with the known side effect profile of TNF inhibitors. Standard validated JIA-U outcome measures are required to homogenize assessment and to allow for comparison and analysis of multiple datasets.