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The Impact of Psoriatic Arthritis on Cardiovascular Risk Factors
Which came first: the psoriatic arthritis or the cardiovascular risk factors?
Reference1. Gulati AM, Salvesen Ã, Thomsen RS, et al. Change in cardiovascular risk factors in patients who develop psoriatic arthritis: longitudinal data from the Nord-Trøndelag Health Study (HUNT). RMD Open. 2018;4:e000630. doi:10.1136/rmdopen-2017-000630.
Results from a large 10-year Norwegian population-based study that compared patients with psoriatic arthritis (PsA) with healthy controls found no increased risk of cardiovascular disease (CVD) following the diagnosis of PsA.1
Click through the slides to find the details of the study and the take-home messages for clinicians.
(Image: ©Sergey Nivens/Shutterstock.com)
Other studies have found an increase in myocardial infarction, cerebrovascular disease, and peripheral vascular disease in patients with PsA.
Gulati and colleagues recently presented their findings in Rheumatic & Musculoskeletal Diseases Open.
BMI, body mass index.
a Only tumor necrosis factor (TNF) inhibitors were available at the time for disease-modifying anti-rheumatic drug use (DMARD) therapy.
b Erythrocyte sedimentation rate (ESR) and C-reactive protein (CRP) level were available only from subjects in the HUNT3 study.
Patients with PsA when compared with controls had higher BMI (27.2 vs 25.9 kg/m2, P < .001) and lower high-density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL-C) (1.32 vs 1.40 mmol/L, P < .03), and more of those with PsA were smokers (41.1% vs 28.5%, P < .01).
Patients with PsA gained less weight than the control group (2.1 vs 3.9 kg), with a significant difference in mean change of −1.8 kg (95% confidence interval [CI]: −3.9 to −0.5, P < .01).
Those with PsA had a greater reduction in total cholesterol values than the controls, with a difference in mean change between the groups of −0.22 mmol/L (P = .04).
More patients with PsA started smoking during the decade-long study compared with controls (8.5% vs 3.1%, P = .03).
The researchers did not adjust for clinical factors such as DMARD and corticosteroid use, disease duration, previous skin psoriasis, or disease activity.