Wu CL, et al. - Researchers evaluated the long-term link between hydroxychloroquine use and risk of developing CKD in patients with newly diagnosed rheumatoid arthritis. In this patient population, hydroxychloroquine use was shown to be related to a significantly lower risk of incident CKD as compared with in nonusers.

Methods

• This observational cohort study was performed on patients with newly diagnosed rheumatoid arthritis who were enrolled prospectively in Taiwan’s National Health Insurance Research Database between January 1, 2000 and December 31, 2013.
• Using multivariable Cox proportional hazard regression, researchers assessed the association of hydroxychloroquine use with incident CKD.

Results

• The analysis included a total of 2619 patients, of whom 1212 were hydroxychloroquine users and 1407 were hydroxychloroquine nonusers.
• As per data, incident CKD was reported in 48 of 1212 hydroxychloroquine users and 121 of 1407 hydroxychloroquine nonusers.
• A lower incidence rate of CKD was seen in hydroxychloroquine users vs in hydroxychloroquine nonusers (10.3 vs 13.8 per 1000 person-years).
• Compared with hydroxychloroquine nonusers , a lower risk of incident CKD was still noted in hydroxychloroquine users (adjusted hazard ratio, 0.64; 95% confidence interval, 0.45 to 0.90; P=0.01), after multivariable adjustment.
• Researchers found that the lower risk of subsequent CKD development was dose dependent and consistent across subgroup analyses.