Biological Agent Switching in Patients With Juvenile Idiopathic Arthritis: A Tertiary Center Experience

The purpose of this study is to investigate the causes and outcomes of switching biological agents in juvenile idiopathic arthritis (JIA) patients using biological agents and compare the characteristics of patients whose biological agents are switched and those whose are not.

This medical records review study was conducted with 128 patients who were diagnosed with JIA at our clinic between January 2009 and January 2022 and were receiving biologic agents. Factors affecting the biologic agent switching were investigated.

The JIA subtype with the most frequent switching in biological agents was systemic JIA (n = 13, 40.6%). Systemic JIA was followed by rheumatoid factor-negative polyarticular JIA and persistent oligoarticular JIA with 5 patients (15.6%), extended oligoarticular JIA and enthesitis-related JIA with 3 patients (9.3%), rheumatoid factor-positive polyarticular JIA with 2 patients (6.2%), and undifferentiated JIA with 1 patient (3.1%). Among the patients, 32 (25%) patients had their biological agent switched once, and 5 (3.9%) had theirs switched twice. The most frequently used biological agent was etanercept (n = 76, 59.3%), whereas the most frequently observed cases of biological agent switching were from an anti-TNF agent to another anti-TNF agent (40.6%). The reason for switching was unresponsiveness to the agent in 22 patients (68.8%), adverse effects in 6 patients (18.7%), drug intolerance in 1 patient (3.1%), and other reasons in 3 patients (9.3%).

The most frequently used biological agent was etanercept; the most frequent cases of biological agents switching were from an anti-TNF agent to another anti-TNF agent.