You are here

  • Home
  • Archive
  • Volume 82, Issue 9
  • Correspondence on ‘The use of tocilizumab and tofacitinib in patients with resolved hepatitis B infection: a case series’

Article Text

Article menu
Download PDFPDF
Correspondence
Correspondence on ‘The use of tocilizumab and tofacitinib in patients with resolved hepatitis B infection: a case series’
  1. Ryu Watanabe1,
  2. Motomu Hashimoto1,
  3. Akio Morinobu2
  1. 1 Department of Advanced Medicine for Rheumatic Diseases, Kyoto University Graduate School of Medicine, Kyoto, Japan
  2. 2 Department of Rheumatology and Clinical Immunology, Kyoto University Graduate School of Medicine, Kyoto, Japan
  1. Correspondence to Dr Ryu Watanabe, Department of Advanced Medicine for Rheumatic Diseases, Kyoto University Graduate School of Medicine, Kyoto 606-8507, Japan; ryuwatanabe{at}kuhp.kyoto-u.ac.jp

http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/annrheumdis-2020-219270

Statistics from Altmetric.com

    Request Permissions

    If you wish to reuse any or all of this article please use the link below which will take you to the Copyright Clearance Center’s RightsLink service. You will be able to get a quick price and instant permission to reuse the content in many different ways.

    We read with great interest the article ‘The use of tocilizumab and tofacitinib in patients with resolved hepatitis B infection: a case series’ by Serling-Boyd et al.1 In this article, the authors conducted a retrospective study and examined the safety of tocilizumab (TCZ) and tofacitinib (TOF) in patients with resolved hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection defined as HB surface antigen (HBsAg)-negative, HB surface antibody (HBsAb)-positive and/or HB core antibody (HBcAb)-positive status. According to the authors, none of the patients developed HBV reactivation, leading to the conclusion that TCZ and TOF may be safely used in patients with resolved HBV infection.1 HBV reactivation can potentially cause de novo hepatitis B associated with a high mortality rate.2 Thus, this study is clinically relevant and reduces our anxiety regarding the management of HBV. However, we have several concerns about this report.

    First, as acknowledged by the authors, …

    View Full Text

    Footnotes

    • Contributors RW wrote the manuscript. MH and AM revised and finalised the manuscript.

    • Funding The authors have not declared a specific grant for this research from any funding agency in the public, commercial or not-for-profit sectors.

    • Competing interests Department of Advanced Medicine for Rheumatic Diseases is supported by Nagahama City, Shiga, Japan, Toyooka City, Hyogo, Japan, and five pharmaceutical companies (Mitsubishi Tanabe Pharma Co., Chugai Pharmaceutical Co. Ltd, UCB Japan Co. Ltd, AYUMI Pharmaceutical Co. and Asahi Kasei Pharma Corp.). It is also supported by grant from Daiichi Sankyo Co. Ltd. RW has received speaker’s fee from Mitsubishi Tanabe, Pfizer, Sanofi, AbbVie, Asahi Kasei, Eisai, Eli Lilly, Bristol-Myers Squibb and Janssen. MH received a research grant and/or speaker fee from Bristol-Myers, Eisai, Eli Lilly and Mitsubishi Tanabe Pharma. AM has received speaking fees and/or research grants from Eli Lilly Japan K.K., Ono Pharmaceutical Co., Pfizer Inc., UCB Japan, AbbVie G.K., Asahi Kasei Pharma and Chugai Pharmaceutical Co. Ltd. The above-mentioned pharmaceutical companies were not involved in this correspondence at any process.

    • Patient and public involvement Patients and/or the public were not involved in the design, or conduct, or reporting or dissemination plans of this research.

    • Provenance and peer review Not commissioned; internally peer reviewed.