After the first 6 months of disease-modifying antirheumatic drugs (DMARDs) use in patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA), most very abnormal results newly seen in long-term routine laboratory toxicity monitoring (lt-RLTM) were either already expected or the result of causes unrelated to DMARDs, according to findings from a new study in Annals of Internal Medicine .

Such results were exceedingly rare, occurring in only 0.15% of cases, and the vast majority of clinical outcomes (93.4%) were mild or moderate or did not involve life-threatening consequences. Further, about four in five very abnormal results were in patients with RA who would have undergone testing anyway because of clinical indications.

Cumulative 5-year incidence of very abnormal results ranged from 0.3% for low leuk

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