FEATURES OF CARDIOVASCULAR LESIONS IN RHEUMATOID ARTHRITIS DEPENDING ON THE AGE OF ONSET OF THE DISEASE

Abstract

Objective: to study the features of cardiovascular lesions in patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA), depending on the age of diseaseʼs onset.

Materials and methods. The study included 140 patients with RA. The average age is 53,8 ± 11,2 years, women 82.1 %, men 17.8 %. Depending on the age of the RA debut, patients are divided into 2 groups: I — patients with a debut of the disease up to 45 years (n = 59) and II — with a debut after 45 years (n = 81). A comparison group consisted of sex and age-comparable patients with essential hypertension without RA.

Results: hypertension in the group with RA debut after 45 years was more common than in I group (57.4 % and 46.6 % respectively). In I group, only 6.6 % of patients had hypertension at the time of debut of RA, in the second group — 28.5 %. In the second group the frequency of such traditional risk factors as overweigth and obesity, metabolic syndrome was higher. Atherosclerotic plaques in the carotid arteries in II group were more common (78.5 %) than in I (53.3 %). In the 1st group men and women plaques were found with the same frequency, in the second — among men more often than often women (100 % and 71.4 % respectively).

Conclusion: the debut of RA after 45 years is more often associated with hypertension at the onset of the disease, they are more likely to have traditional risk factors, which accompanied by more pronounced structural changes in the carotid arteries when compared with RA debut up to 45 years.