Rheumatology Advance Access published online on March 10, 2004
Rheumatology, doi:10.1093/rheumatology/keh161
Rheumatology © British Society for Rheumatology 2004; all rights reserved
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Original Papers
1 ARC Epidemiology Unit, University of Manchester Medical School, Manchester, UK
* Corresponding author. E-mail: Deborah.Symmons{at}man.ac.uk.
Received 26 June 2003
; accepted 21 January 2004
Background. Cardiovascular mortality is increased in patients with seropositive inflammatory polyarthritis (IP). We tested the hypothesis that the increased risk of cardiovascular disease (CVD) can be explained by elevated traditional CVD risk factor levels in persons prior to development of IP. Methods. In a population-based, prospective nested case-control study, 25 600 people aged 45-75 yr participated in a health survey, including standard CVD risk factor assessment, between the years 1993 and 1997. There were 91 incident IP cases (one-third were seropositive at presentation) identified during follow-up to the end of July 2001. Baseline CVD risk factors in the IP cases were compared with those in two age/gender-matched controls. Results. Current smokers had an odds ratio of 2.0 (95% CI 1.0-4.0) for IP. Other risk factors, including total and LDL cholesterol, systolic and diastolic blood pressure and obesity, did not differ significantly between cases and controls. Importantly, in combination, using a standard coronary disease risk score, these factors only had a modest association with future IP, and no association when analysis was restricted to the smaller number of cases who were seropositive. Conclusion. Of the traditional cardiovascular risk factors, only smoking increases CVD risk prior to the onset of IP. Therefore the increased CVD observed in these patients is likely to be a consequence of factors operating after the onset of the arthritis.
Key words: Cardiovascular risk factors, Inflammatory polyarthritis, smoking, rheumatoid factor.
Traditional cardiovascular risk factors measured prior to the onset of inflammatory polyarthritis
2 Norfolk Arthritis Register, Norfolk and Norwich University Hospital, Norwich, UK
3 EPIC-Norfolk, Institute of Public Health, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK
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