Abstract
Objective: To determine whether rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is associated with excess mortality among older women. Methods: RA associated mortality was examined in a prospective cohort study that was started in 1986, and included 31 336 women aged 55-69 years without a history of RA at baseline. Up to 1997, 158 cases of RA were identified and validated against medical records. The relative risk (RR) and 95% confidence interval (CI) were calculated as measures of association between RA onset and subsequent mortality (overall and cause-specific) using Cox proportional hazards regression. Results: Compared with non-cases, women developing RA during follow up had a significantly increased mortality risk (RR=1.52; 95% CI 1.05 to 2.20). Mortality was higher among rheumatoid factor (RF) positive cases (RR=1.90; 95% CI 1.24 to 2.92) than among RF negative cases (RR=1.00; 95% CI 0.45 to 1.99). There were trends towards increased proportions of RA related deaths from infection (RR=3.61; 95% CI 0.89-14.69) and circulatory disease (RR=1.46; 95% CI 0.76 to 2.81) but not malignancy (RR=0.97; 95% CI 0.46 to 2.04). Conclusions: RA was associated with significantly increased mortality in a cohort of older women, and the association appeared to be restricted to those with RF positive disease.
Original language | English (US) |
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Pages (from-to) | 994-999 |
Number of pages | 6 |
Journal | Annals of the rheumatic diseases |
Volume | 61 |
Issue number | 11 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - Nov 2002 |
Externally published | Yes |
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Rheumatology
- Immunology and Allergy
- Immunology
- General Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology