Rates of serious infection, including site‐specific and bacterial intracellular infection, in rheumatoid arthritis patients receiving anti–tumor necrosis factor therapy: Results from the British Society for Rheumatology Biologics Register

To determine whether the rate of serious infection is higher in anti-tumor necrosis factor (anti-TNF)-treated rheumatoid arthritis (RA) patients compared with RA patients treated with traditional disease-modifying antirheumatic drugs (DMARDs).

This was a national prospective observational study of 7,664 anti-TNF-treated and 1,354 DMARD-treated patients with severe RA from the British Society for Rheumatology Biologics Register. All serious infections, stratified by site and organism, were included in the analysis.