Prevalence of ischemic heart disease and associated factors in patients with rheumatoid arthritis in Southern Brazil

Objective

To estimate the prevalence of ischemic heart disease and associated factors in patients with rheumatoid arthritis.

Methods

A cross-sectional study using the American College of Rheumatology diagnostic criteria in order to select patients seen at primary or secondary health care units in Blumenau, Santa Catarina, Southern Brazil, in 2014. The presence of ischemic heart disease was defined as an acute myocardial infarction with percutaneous coronary intervention or coronary artery bypass graft surgery that has occurred after diagnosis. Fischer's exact test, Wald's linear trend test, and multivariate logistic regression analysis were used to test the associations.

Results

Among 296 patients (83.1% female) with a mean age of 56.6 years and a mean rheumatoid arthritis duration of 11.3 years, 13 reported having acute myocardial infarction requiring a percutaneous or surgical reperfusion procedure, a prevalence of 4.4% (95% CI 2.0–6.7). Diabetes Mellitus (odds ratio [OR] 4.9 [95% CI 1.6–13.8]) and disease duration >10 years (OR 8.2 [95% CI 1.8–39.7]) were the only factors associated with an ischemic disease that remained in the final model, after the multivariate analysis.

Conclusion

The prevalence of acute myocardial infarction was similar to that observed in other studies. Among the traditional risk factors, Diabetes Mellitus, and among the factors related to rheumatoid arthritis, disease duration, were the variables associated with comorbidity.