Increased Comorbidities in Rheumatoid Arthritis Save

A population based study from Taiwan examined the frequencies of comorbidities in a rheumatoid arthritis (RA) population.

Using the 2010-2012 Korea National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (KNHANES), researchers determined the weighted prevalence and odds ratio (OR) of comorbidities from a population of 37,453,158) wherin the prevalence of RA was 1.5%.

Overall, RA had more comorbidities than non-RA persons, especially for hypertension, dyslipidemia, myocardial infarction (MI) or angina, stoke, osteoarthritis, lung cancer, colon cancer, pulmonary tuberculosis, asthma, diabetes, depression, thyroid disease and chronic kidney disease.

After adjustments, RA patients had and increased prevalence of:

• MI or angina (OR 1.86, 95% CI 1.17-2.96, p = 0.009),
• Pulmonary TB (OR 1.95, 95% CI 1.24-3.09, p = 0.004),
• Asthma (OR 1.97, 95% CI 1.05-3.71, p = 0.036),
• Thyroid disease (OR 1.71, 95% CI 1.05-2.77),
• Depression (OR 2.38, 95% CI 1.47-3.85, p 0.001)
• Hepatitis B (OR 2.34, 95% CI 1.15-4.80, p = 0.020)

Solid cancers were not significantly associated with RA.

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