New candidate parameters for evaluation of cardiovascular risk in patients with rheumatoid arthritis

Objectives: The aim of this study was to analyze whether N0S3 T-786C, TNFa C-863A, TNFa G-308A, TNFa G-238A, ILlß T-31C, IL4 C-S90T, IL6 G-174C, ILIO A-1082G, ILIO C-592A, MMP2 C-1306T, MMP3 5A-1171 6A, MMP9 C-1562T, VEGF C-2578A and VEGF+C936T single nucleotide polymorphisms are associated with a presence of atherosclerotic plaque in carotid artery in patients with rheumatoid arthritis. Patients and methods: 158 Caucasian patients with rheumatoid arthritis were included in study. Carotid ultrasonography, the genotyping by restriction fragment length polymorphism analysis of polymerase chain reaction-amplified fragments and general examination were performed for all patients. Descriptive statistics, Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium with Chi-square test, logistic regression with Wald statistics were used for analysis of the results. Results: After adjustment for age and sex, logistic regression had showed that one-by-one included TNFa C-863A, TNFa G-308A, IL-4 C-590T, VEGF C-936T SNPs was statistically significant in predicting the presence of atherosclerotic plaque. The final model, including age, sex, TNFa-G308A and MMP9-C1562T SNPs had 77,7% of correct observation. Conclusions: The determine of TNFa-G308A and MMP9 — C1S62T may be useful for cardiovascular risk assessment in patients with rheumatoid arthritis. No significant results were found for ILlß T-31C, VEGF C-2578A, IL6 G-174C, ILIO A-1082G, ILIO C-592A, MMP2 C-1306T, MMP3 SA-1171 6A SNPs and other parameters (smoking, dyslipidemia, hypertension).