Risk of hospitalization for heart failure in rheumatoid arthritis patients treated with etanercept and abatacept

To estimate biologic influence on heart failure (HF) risk in rheumatoid arthritis. Retrospective cohort (RECORD Study of Italian Society for Rheumatology) study on administrative healthcare databases. We identified 2527 patients treated with either etanercept (n = 1690) or abatacept (n = 837). HF incidence rate was higher in the abatacept cohort than in the etanercept cohort with a 2.38 (95% CI 1.08–5.27) crude competing risk HR (SHR) for abatacept of developing HF, not confirmed after adjustment for prespecified confounders (SHR 1.43; 95% CI 0.51–3.98). Abatacept, compared to etanercept, is prescribed to patients with a worse cardiovascular profile but does not increase the risk of developing HF, when confounding factors are accounted for.