FROM ANNALS OF THE RHEUMATIC DISEASES
Nearly one-third of cardiovascular events in patients with rheumatoid arthritis can be attributed to their rheumatoid arthritis characteristics, such as Disease Activity Score and rheumatoid factor or anticitrullinated protein antibody positivity, research suggests.
A prospective, international cohort study published in Annals of the Rheumatic Diseases followed 5,638 patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) and no history of cardiovascular disease for a mean of 5.8 years to look at their risk of myocardial infarction, angina, revascularization, stroke, peripheral vascular disease, and death from cardiovascular disease.
“Knowledge regarding the impact of various risk factors on CVD events is essential to individualize CVD risk evaluation and prevention for patients with RA,” wrote Cynthia S. Crowson of the Mayo Clinic, Rochester, Minn., and her coauthors ( Ann Rheum Dis. 2017 Sep 15. doi: 10.1136/annrheumdis-2017-211735 ).
Overall, the 10-year cumulative incidence of cardiovascular events was 20.9% in men and 11.1% in women.
Smoking and hypertension were the strongest predictors of cardiovascular disease in both men and women and had the highest population attributable risk (PAR), even after adjustment for other cardiovascular risk factors.
The PAR for triglycerides was 11.5% overall, but it was 12.6% for Disease Activity Score in 28 joints (DAS28) and 12.2% for rheumatoid factor (RF)/anticitrullinated protein antibody (ACPA) positivity. Other RA-related factors, such as erythrocyte sedimentation rate (ESR) and C-reactive protein, did not have a significant effect on cardiovascular event risk.
When combined, cardiovascular risk factors such as blood pressure, cholesterol levels, smoking, body mass index, diabetes, and family history accounted for 49% of the PAR of cardiovascular events in people with RA, and the RA characteristics explained 30.3% of the risk.
Together, the cardiovascular and RA risk factors accounted for 69.6% of the risk of cardiovascular events, and the remaining 30.4% could not be explained.
While the PAR associated with the combined cardiovascular risk factors was higher in men than in women, the contribution of all the RA characteristics combined proved to be greater in women than in men. However, neither sex difference was statistically significant.
“While the prevalence of RF/ACPA positivity and DAS28 levels was similar between the sexes, the effect sizes of RA characteristics appeared to be larger among women than men, despite lack of statistical significance,” the authors wrote.
“Moreover, higher levels of ESR in women than men may partially explain this apparent difference in PAR [and] RA disease duration was longer among women, and more women than men were receiving biological [disease-modifying antirheumatic drugs] at baseline.”
Eli Lilly, the National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases, and the Norwegian South East Health Authority supported the study. Two authors declared honoraria, fees, and grants from the pharmaceutical industry, including Eli Lilly. No other conflicts of interest were declared.
