Patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) suffer from co-morbidities that contribute to a shortened lifespan. Inflammation is important for the development of cardiovascular disease, but little is known on its relationship with other co-morbidities. We investigated the role of inflammation for the development of new comorbidities in early RA.
Since 1995, all patients with early RA in Northern Sweden are included in a prospective study on co-morbidities, with a total of 950 patients being included. At the time for this study, 726 had been ill for =5 years. Data on co-morbidities, clinical and laboratory disease activity and pharmacological therapy were collected from patient records and further validated using a questionnaire at RA onset (T0) and after 5 years (T5).
Of the patients, 53.2 % of the patients had one or more co-morbidity at onset, the commonest being: hypertension (27.3 %), obstructive pulmonary disease (13.9 %), diabetes (8.0 %), hypothyroidism (6.3 %) and malignancy (5.0 %). After 5 years, 41.0 % had developed at least one new co-morbidity, the most common being: hypertension (15.1 %), malignancy (7.6 %), stroke/transient ischemic accident (5.1 %), myocardial infarction (4.3 %) and osteoporosis (3.7 %). Age at disease onset, a raised erythrocyte sedimentation rate (ESR) at inclusion, previous treatment with glucocorticoids (GC; p?