Cardiovascular (CV) risk and adverse cardiac outcomes are common in rheumatoid arthritis (RA). It has been presumed that chronic systemic inflammation has a deleterious effect on the myocardium and vasculature, thereby leading to higher rates of MI, CHF and CV death.

Idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis carries a high mortality rate and can be a management challenge. Moreover, exacerbations of IPF may be fatal. A multicenter uncontrolled study examined the utility of targeting autoantibody production with revealed surprising results.

These abstracts and presentations were presented 12 June at the EULAR 2015 annual meeting.

CVD risk is significantly augmented in gout. Choi and coworkers studied this issue using a UK general population database using an incident user cohort study with propensity score matching.

The diagnosis of chronic lung disease in patients with systemic sclerosis may be difficult because of atypical symptoms, variable evolution and limitations of current classification criteria for a definite diagnosis. Nevertheless, diagnosis is necessary as patients with SSc-ILD have a p

A Finnish early RA register studied 14,878 incident RA patients from 2000-2008 and identified 1157 deaths.  Patients receiving DMARDs and MTX had lower mortality rates. The standardized moratility ratio for the entire cohort was reduced (0.57, 95% CI 0.52 to 0.62).