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Rheumatology Advance Access originally published online on January 29, 2007
Rheumatology 2007 46(5):846-848; doi:10.1093/rheumatology/kel414
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© The Author 2007. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the British Society for Rheumatology. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oxfordjournals.org

What's in season for rheumatoid arthritis patients? Seasonal fluctuations in disease activity

N. Iikuni, A. Nakajima, E. Inoue, E. Tanaka, H. Okamoto, M. Hara, T. Tomatsu, N. Kamatani and H. Yamanaka

Institute of Rheumatology, Tokyo Women's Medical University, Tokyo, Japan

Correspondence to: Noriko Iikuni, Institute of Rheumatology, Tokyo Women's Medical University, 10-22 Kawada-cho, Shinjuku-ku, Tokyo 162-0054 Japan. E-mail: iikuni{at}ior.twmu.ac.jp


  Abstract

Objectives. To examine whether a seasonal fluctuation exists with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) activity and to analyse seasonal effects of varying components that express disease activity in RA patients.

Methods. A group of 1665 RA patients (mean age 57.2 yrs, mean disease duration 9.9 yrs) whose data were available for 10 consecutive phases from a large observational cohort study conducted at our institution from October 2000 to April 2005, bi-annually, were evaluated. Ten criteria were analysed to assess RA disease activity.

Results. All criteria revealed decrease in disease activity during fall and increase in disease activity during spring, except for the physician's global assessment of disease activity in which significant differences were not observed between the two seasons.

Conclusions. We found definite seasonal differences in RA patients, both subjectively and objectively. RA disease activity was higher in spring and lower during fall. Seasonal changes may play an important role in evaluating disease activity of RA patients and should be taken into account when examining these patients.

KEY WORDS: Rheumatoid arthritis, Season, Cohort study, Disease activity

Submitted 18 July 2006; revised version accepted 7 November 2006.
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