Tuberculosis under anti-TNF therapy: case series of a center (reporting the experience from the period 2006-2019)

Abstract

Patients with inflammatory rheumatic diseases refractory to conventional disease modifying antirheumatic drugs (DMARDs)have been treated with biologics for the last two decades. It is also known that patients under biotechnological therapy present a higher risk of developing Tuberculosis (TB).Portugal has now a TB incidence classified as low. National recommendations advise on latent TB screening before the beginning of the biological therapy. This screening consists in the detection of risk factors and/or signs and symptoms of latent TB through clinical history, physical examination, chest X-ray, tuberculin skin test and Interferon Gamma Release Assay (IGRA) test. We describe five clinical cases of patients who underwent biotechnological therapy at our Hospital after 2006 and developed TB.