Opportunistic infections in immunosuppressed patients with juvenile idiopathic arthritis: analysis by the Pharmachild Safety Adjudication Committee

Background To derive a list of opportunistic infections (OI) through the analysis of the juvenile idiopathic arthritis (JIA) patients in the Pharmachild registry by an independent Safety Adjudication Committee (SAC). Methods The SAC (3 pediatric rheumatologists and 2 pediatric infectious disease specialists) elaborated and approved by consensus a provisional list of OI for use in JIA. Through a 5 step-procedure, all the severe and serious infections, classified as per MedDRA dictionary and retrieved in the Pharmachild registry, were evaluated by the SAC by answering six questions and adjudicated with the agreement of 3/5 specialists. A final evidence-based list of OI resulted by matching the adjudicated infections with the provisional list of OI. Results A total of 772 infectious events in 572 eligible patients, of which 335 serious/severe/very severe non-OI and 437 OI (any intensity/severity), according to the provisional list, were retrieved. Six hundred eighty-two of 772 (88.3%) were adjudicated as infections, of them 603/682 (88.4%) as common and 119/682 (17.4%) as OI by the SAC. Matching these 119 opportunistic events with the provisional list, 106 were confirmed by the SAC as OI, and among them infections by herpes viruses were the most frequent (68%), followed by tuberculosis (27.4%). The remaining events were divided in the groups of non-OI and possible/patient and/or pathogen-related OI. Conclusions We found a significant number of OI in JIA patients on immunosuppressive therapy. The proposed list of OI, created by consensus and validated in the Pharmachild cohort, could facilitate comparison among future pharmacovigilance studies

American College of Rheumatology Provisional Criteria for Clinically Relevant Improvement in Children and Adolescents With Childhood-Onset Systemic Lupus Erythematosus

Objective: To develop a Childhood Lupus Improvement Index (CHILI) as a tool to measure response to therapy in childhood-onset systemic lupus erythematosus (cSLE), with a focus on clinically relevant improvement (CRI cSLE ). Methods: Pediatric nephrology and rheumatology subspecialists (n = 213) experienced in cSLE management were invited to define CRI cSLE and rate a total of 433 unique patient profiles for the presence/absence of CRI cSLE . Patient profiles included the following cSLE core response variables (CRVs): global assessment of patient well-being (patient-global), physician assessment of cSLE activity (MD-global), disease activity index score (here, we used the Systemic Lupus Erythematosus Disease Activity Index), urine protein-to-creatinine ratio, and Child Health Questionnaire physical summary score. Percentage and absolute changes in these cSLE-CRVs (baseline versus follow-up) were considered in order to develop candidate algorithms and validate their performance (sensitivity, specificity, area under the receiver operating characteristic curve [AUC]; range 0\u20131). Results: During an international consensus conference, unanimous agreement on a definition of CRI cSLE was achieved; cSLE experts (n = 13) concurred (100%) that the preferred CHILI algorithm considers absolute changes in the cSLE-CRVs. After transformation to a range of 0\u2013100, a CHILI score of 6554 had outstanding accuracy for identifying CRI cSLE (AUC 0.93, sensitivity 81.1%, and specificity 84.2%). CHILI scores also reflect minor, moderate, and major improvement for values exceeding 15, 68, and 92, respectively (all AUC 650.92, sensitivity 6593.1%, and specificity 6573.4%). Conclusion: The CHILI is a new, seemingly highly accurate index for measuring CRI in cSLE over time. This index is useful to categorize the degree of response to therapy in children and adolescents with cSLE

American College of Rheumatology Provisional Criteria for Clinically Relevant Improvement in Children and Adolescents With Childhood-Onset Systemic Lupus Erythematosus

Objective: To develop a Childhood Lupus Improvement Index (CHILI) as a tool to measure response to therapy in childhood-onset systemic lupus erythematosus (cSLE), with a focus on clinically relevant improvement (CRI cSLE ). Methods: Pediatric nephrology and rheumatology subspecialists (n = 213) experienced in cSLE management were invited to define CRI cSLE and rate a total of 433 unique patient profiles for the presence/absence of CRI cSLE . Patient profiles included the following cSLE core response variables (CRVs): global assessment of patient well-being (patient-global), physician assessment of cSLE activity (MD-global), disease activity index score (here, we used the Systemic Lupus Erythematosus Disease Activity Index), urine protein-to-creatinine ratio, and Child Health Questionnaire physical summary score. Percentage and absolute changes in these cSLE-CRVs (baseline versus follow-up) were considered in order to develop candidate algorithms and validate their performance (sensitivity, specificity, area under the receiver operating characteristic curve [AUC]; range 0–1). Results: During an international consensus conference, unanimous agreement on a definition of CRI cSLE was achieved; cSLE experts (n = 13) concurred (100%) that the preferred CHILI algorithm considers absolute changes in the cSLE-CRVs. After transformation to a range of 0–100, a CHILI score of ≥54 had outstanding accuracy for identifying CRI cSLE (AUC 0.93, sensitivity 81.1%, and specificity 84.2%). CHILI scores also reflect minor, moderate, and major improvement for values exceeding 15, 68, and 92, respectively (all AUC ≥0.92, sensitivity ≥93.1%, and specificity ≥73.4%). Conclusion: The CHILI is a new, seemingly highly accurate index for measuring CRI in cSLE over time. This index is useful to categorize the degree of response to therapy in children and adolescents with cSLE