Biologics register JuMBO. Long-term safety of biologic therapy of juvenile idiopathic arthritis

In recent years the treatment of juvenile idiopathic arthritis (JIA) has changed dramatically. Nowadays one out of three children with polyarticular JIA is treated with a biologic drug; however, knowledge about the long-term safety of biologics is still limited. Information on drug safety is collected in the JIA biologic register (BiKeR) and the follow-up register juvenile arthritis methotrexate/biologics long-term observation (JuMBO). The latter currently includes information on more than 700 young adults most of whom were treated with etanercept and prospectively followed for more than 5 years. Preliminary data on the long-term safety of etanercept for JIA are therefore available. Over an observation period of 1,800 etanercept exposure-years, events of particular interest, such as malignancies, serious infections and new onset immune-mediated diseases have been recorded which occurred at rates of 0.1, 1.1 and 0.9/100 patient-years, respectively. Overall, new safety risks were not detected during long-term etanercept exposure. Moreover, JuMBO has also provided information on the long-term outcome of JIA and initial evidence suggests that JIA outcome, especially in functional aspects has improved in the biologic era. Data from BiKeR and JuMBO contribute to the risk-benefit assessment of biologic drugs which have been implemented in the routine treatment of JIA.