Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is often regarded as benign and not a serious disease. Yet patients with RA have a substantially reduced life expectancy. Patients with RA are particularly at risk of death from cardiovascular disease, infection and renal disease. A few variables are now recognized as important predictive markers, such as disease duration, severity, sex, educational level and treatment., Copyright (C) 2005 Blackwell Publishing Ltd
Enteropathic arthritis is one of the recognized extraintestinal manifestations of inflammatory bowel disease and affects up to 25% of patients. The treatment options for refractory disease were rather limited and ineffective until the arrival of biologic therapy in the last few years. The use of etanercept was unique for this disease.
Introduction: Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is a systemic disease of unknown cause. A variety of pulmonary disorders have been described in association with RA. Among the most common are interstitial lung disease
(ILD) and bronchiectasis.
Objectives: This study aims to determine the characteristics of RA patients with lung disease in relation to clinical characteristics, pulmonary function test (PFT) and high resolution computed tomography (HRCT) thorax.
Method: This is a 6-months cross-sectional study involving 63 consecutive RA patients in an outpatient rheumatology clinic. Patients had a mean disease duration of 5 years and above. Disease activity and severity
was assessed by Disease Activity Score 28 (DAS28), Health Assessment Questionnaire (HAQ) and Rheumatoid Arthritis Articular Damage (RAAD) score. Full pulmonary function test (PFT) and HRCT of thorax were performed.
Conclusions: The prevalence of RA-ILD is 44% and 67% of patients are asymptomatic. There was significant higher proportion (68%) in patients of Chinese ethnicity who have ILD. Diffusion capacity of carbon monoxide
was abnormal in all patients and forced expiratory flow (FEF)25–75% was low in 16%. Restrictive pattern was 66.7% by PFT. The most common HRCT findings were reticulation (46%) followed by ground glass opacities
(38.1%) and bronchiectasis (28.6%). There was no association between ILD and male gender, duration of the disease, smoking, rheumatoid factor, extra-articular manifestations, disease activity or severity.
Key words: high resolution computed tomography, interstitial lung disease, lung function test, rheumatoid arthritis.
Study site: Rheumatology clinic, Pusat Perubatan Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (PPUKM), Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia