The effect of tumour necrosis factor inhibitors on radiographic progression in axial spondyloarthritis: A systematic literature review

The effect of TNF-α inhibitors (TNFi), with or without concomitant NSAIDs, on radiographic progression in axial SpA remains unclear. Therefore, we performed a systematic literature review up to January 2019 to determine whether longer use of standard dose TNFi is superior vs lower duration or lower dose TNFi therapy, conventional synthetic DMARDs alone, or no therapy in inhibiting radiographic progression in patients with axial SpA. Our search yielded 373 titles of which 14 full text articles and five abstracts were eligible for quantitative analysis. Studies had an overall moderate to critical risk of bias. Data could not be pooled due to clinical and methodological heterogeneity. Individual studies showed conflicting results with mainly no significant difference in radiographic progression when comparing effect of TNFi therapy to no TNFi therapy or when comparing to less TNFi therapy until 2 years of follow-up. Results that are more significant are shown after 2 years' follow-up, mainly in subgroups with baseline syndesmophytes. Data on the additional or synergistic effect of concomitant NSAID use were inconclusive.