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. 2021 Sep 28;36(12):3794–3801. doi: 10.1007/s11606-021-07152-2

Table 3.

Exploratory Analyses of Specific Medication Exposures and Any Severe COVID-19 Outcome

Number of outcomes/numberof cases Adjusted
OR (95% CI)
N = 3977
Original analysis (Table2)
No immune-mediated medication 3723/38,406 Ref
Prednisone 197/958 1.31 (1.08–1.60)
Immunomodulator 83/327 0.88 (0.57–1.34)
Small-molecule/biologic therapy 36/193 1.26 (0.79–2.00)
Short-term vs longer prednisone*
No immune-mediated medication 3723/38,406 Ref
Short-term prednisone (< 7 days) 62/432 1.08 (0.80–1.48)
Longer prednisone (≥ 7 days) 123/491 1.49 (1.15–1.93)
Immunomodulator 83/327 0.85 (0.56–1.31)
Small-molecule/biologic therapy 36/193 1.25 (0.78–1.98)
Monotherapy vs combination therapy
No immune-mediated medication 3723/38,406 Ref
Monotherapy
Prednisone 149/821 1.25 (1.01–1.54)
Immunomodulator 34/167 0.76 (0.46–1.27)
Small molecule/biologic 16/115 0.82 (0.43–1.55)
Combination therapy
Prednisone + immunomodulator 35/99 1.12 (0.56–2.25)
Prednisone + small molecule/biologic 6/17 3.57 (1.17–10.85)
Immunomodulator + small molecule/biologic 7/40 1.17 (0.45–3.04)
All three 7/21 2.99 (0.94–9.49)
Selected medication groupings
No immune-mediated medication 3723/38,406 Ref
Prednisone 197/958 1.27 (1.04–1.55)
Thiopurines/traditional DMARDs 34/220 0.53 (0.32–0.88)
Anti-TNF 7/94 0.45 (0.18–1.08)
JAK-I 7/23 3.35 (1.16–9.67)
Other therapies used only in immune-mediated inflammatory disease†† 9/66 0.83 (0.37–1.89)
Other therapies used also in other diseases (i.e., transplant, cancer)§ 60/129 3.84 (2.01–7.35)

All models adjust for patient age, sex, race/ethnicity, body mass index, immune-mediated disease (asthma, inflammatory bowel disease, organ transplantation, psoriasis, rheumatoid arthritis, spondyloarthropathy, lupus), hypertension, Charlson comorbidity score, and week of SARS-CoV-2-positive lab test. Therapies with at least 1 patient are listed

*35 patients missing length of prednisone

†Azathioprine, 6-mercaptopurine, methotrexate, hydroxychloroquine, leflunomide

††Apremilast, tocilizumab, ustekinumab, guselkumab, secukinumab, vedolizumab, belimumab, abatacept

§Cyclosporine, tacrolimus, everolimus, cyclophosphamide, mycophenolate, rituximab