Efficacy and safety of tofacitinib in treating rheumatoid arthritis: a Metaanalysis

Objective To enrich scientific basis for clinical treatment of tofacitinib, the current systematic review is made by evaluating the efficacy and safety of tofacitinib on the treatment of rheumatoid arthritis (RA). Methods RevMan 5.2 was employed for metaanalysis, two researchers extracted medical science materials and evaluated their qualities based on the standards of inclusion and exclusion criteria independently. Databases including Medline, EMbase, the Cochrane library, CBM and CNKI were searched, with the retrieval time spanning from January 1989 to August 2014. Results Two thousand nine hundred and nine patients participated in the trail, among which 2 166 patients were in the tofacitinib group and 743 inthe placebo group. By the application of 8 Randomized controlled trials (RCTs), metaanalysis suggested that tofacitinib gave better results than placebo for RA [RR(95%CI)=1.92(1.42, 2.59),P<0.01], and no significant difference was shown in thesafety between them [RR(95%CI)=0.62(0.31, 1.24),P=0.17]. Conclusion Tofacitinib is effective for the treatment of RA and equal to placebo in safety. It is a safe and effective therapy for RA. However, as the short duration and the limited sources may somewhat affect the results, more high-quality double-blind RCTs may be required for further assessment of the effects. Key words: Arthritis, rheumatoid; Randomized controlled trials; Meta-analysis; Tofacitinib