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Rheumatoid Arthritis Patients Have Increased Risk of Stroke: Presented at ACR
By Ed Susman
BOSTON, MA -- November 9, 2007 -- Researchers said that people living with rheumatoid arthritis have a 67% greater risk of suffering a stroke than the general population -- suggesting that the disease causes an extra 1,000 strokes a year in the United Kingdom, where the study was conducted.
"If the same were true of the population of the United States, then an additional 5,000 strokes might occur each year due to rheumatoid arthritis," said Christopher Edwards, MD, Consultant Rheumatologist and Honorary Senior Lecturer, Department of Rheumatology, Southampton General Hospital, Southampton University Hospitals NH Trust, Southampton, England, United Kingdom.
Dr. Edwards accessed data in the United Kingdom General Practice Research Database and determined that the incidence of stroke among those 7 million persons whose medical records were available for analysis was 2.94 per 1,000 persons per year.
"This gives a hazard ratio of 1.67," said Dr. Edwards during a press briefing at the American College of Rheumatology (ACR) Annual Meeting. He said the finding reached statistical significance at P <.001.
"Stroke appears to be another consequence of the detrimental effects of long-term systemic inflammation that comes with rheumatoid arthritis," he said. "The effect was still present after controlling for other risk factors including lifestyle factors, hypertension, diabetes, and the treatment of those risk factors."
Patients who took corticosteroids had a further increase in stroke risk, but that was not the case with disease-modifying agents. Dr. Edwards said, however, that the data appeared to show a nonsignificant trend toward more risk in the patients taking methotrexate.
Dr. Edwards said his data suggest that inflammation that occurs in rheumatoid arthritis is the culprit in raising the stroke rates and therefore patients should work to control inflammation and protect the rest of the body against collateral damage.
"Despite the traditional concentration on joint damage, rheumatoid arthritis is a systemic disease with widespread effects on other parts of the body," he noted.
The study received no industry support.
[Presentation title: The Risk of Stroke in Patients With Rheumatoid Arthritis Compared to the General Population. Abstract 684]
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