TNF Blockers Not Associated With Poorer Pregnancy Outcomes
Continuing a tumor necrosis factor inhibitor (TNFi) during pregnancy does not increase risk of worse fetal or obstetric outcomes, according to new research presented at the American College of Rheumatology (ACR) 2023 Annual Meeting.
Patients who continued a TNFi also had fewer severe infections requiring hospitalization, compared with those who stopped taking the medication during their pregnancy.
Dr Anna Moltó
“The main message is that patients continuing were not doing worse than the patients stopping. It’s an important clinical message for rheumatologists who are not really confident in dealing with these drugs during pregnancy,” said Anna Moltó, MD, PhD, a rheumatologist at the Cochin Hospital in Paris, France, who led the research. “It adds to the data that it seems to be safe,” she told Medscape Medical News.
Previous research, largely from pregnant patients with inflammatory bowel disease, suggests that taking a TNFi during pregnancy is safe, and 2020 ACR guidelines conditionally recommend continuing therapy prior to and during pregnancy; however, many people still stop taking the drugs during pregnancy for fear of potentially harming the fetus.
To better understand how TNFi use affected pregnancy outcomes, Moltó and colleagues analyzed data from a French nationwide health insurance database to identify adult women with chronic rheumatic inflammatory disease. All women included in the cohort had a singleton pregnancy between 2008 and 2017 and were taking a TNFi upon pregnancy diagnosis.
Patients who restarted TNFi after initially pausing due to pregnancy were included in the continuation group.
Researchers identified more than 2000 pregnancies, including 1503 in individuals with spondyloarthritis and 579 individuals with rheumatoid arthritis. Patients were, on average, 31 years old and were diagnosed with a rheumatic disease 4 years prior to their pregnancy.
About 72% (n = 1497) discontinued TNFi after learning they were pregnant, and 584 individuals continued treatment. Moltó noted that data from more recent years might have captured lower discontinuation rates among pregnant individuals, but those data were not available for the study.
There was no difference in unfavorable obstetrical or infant outcomes, including spontaneous abortion, preeclampsia, gestational diabetes, major congenital malformation, and severe infection of the infant requiring hospitalization. Somewhat surprisingly, the data showed that women who discontinued a TNFi were more likely to be hospitalized for infection either during their pregnancy or up to 6 weeks after delivery, compared with those who continued therapy (1.3% vs. 0.2%, respectively).
Moltó is currently looking into what could be behind this counterintuitive result, but she hypothesizes that patients who had stopped TNFi may have been taking more glucocorticoids.
Dr Sara Tedeschi
“At our institution, there is generally a comfort level with continuing TNF inhibitors during pregnancy, at least until about 36 weeks,” said Sara K. Tedeschi, MD, MPH, a rheumatologist at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston and assistant professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School. Sometimes, there is concern for risk of infection to the infant, depending on the type of TNFi being used, she said during a press conference.
“I think that these are really informative and supportive data to let women know that they probably have a really good chance of doing very well during the pregnancy if they continue” their TNFi, said Tedeschi, who was not involved with the study.
TNF Discontinuation on the Decline
In a related study, researchers at McGill University in Montreal, Canada, found that TNFi discontinuation prior to pregnancy had decreased over time in individuals with chronic inflammatory diseases.
Using a database of US insurance claims, they identified 3372 women with rheumatoid arthritis (RA), ankylosing spondylitis (AS), psoriasis (PsO)/psoriatic arthritis (PsA), and/or inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) who previously used a TNFi and gave birth between 2011 and 2019. A patient was considered to have used a TNFi if she had filled a prescription or had an infusion procedure insurance claim within 12 weeks before the gestational period or anytime during pregnancy. Researchers did not have time-specific data to account for women who stopped treatment at pregnancy diagnosis.
Nearly half (47%) of all identified pregnancies were in individuals with IBD, and the rest included patients with RA (24%), PsO or PsA (16%), AS (3%), or more than one diagnosis (10%).
In total, 14% of women discontinued TNFi use in the 12 weeks before becoming pregnant and did not restart. From 2011-2013, 19% of patients stopped their TNFi, but this proportion decreased overtime, with 10% of patients stopping therapy from 2017-2019 (P < .0001).
Leah Flatman
This decline “possibly reflects the increase in real-world evidence about the safety of TNFi in pregnancy. That research, in turn, led to new guidelines recommending the continuation of TNFi during pregnancy,” first author Leah Flatman, a PhD candidate in epidemiology at McGill, told Medscape. “I think we can see this potentially as good news.”
More patients with RA, PsO/PsA, and AS discontinued TNFi therapy prior to conception (23%–25%), compared with those with IBD (5%).
Flatman noted that her study and Moltó’s study complement each other by providing data on individuals stopping TNFi prior to conception vs those stopping treatment after pregnancy diagnosis.
“These findings demonstrate that continuing TNFi during pregnancy appears not to be associated with an increase in adverse obstetrical or infant outcomes,” Flatman said of Moltó’s study. “As guidelines currently recommend continuing TNFi, studies like this help demonstrate that the guideline changes do not appear to be associated with an increase in adverse events.”
Moltó and Flatman have disclosed no relevant financial relationships. Tedeschi has worked as a consultant for Novartis.
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