To investigate the risk of subsequent development of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) in patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA).
We conducted a systematic review and meta-analysis of cohort studies that reported relative risk, hazard ratio or standardized incidence ratio with 95% confidence interval (CI), comparing risk of incident COPD in patients with RA versus non-RA participants. Pooled risk ratio and 95% CI were calculated using a random-effect, generic inverse variance method of DerSimonian and Laird.
Four retrospective cohort studies with 32,675 patients with RA and 122,204 controls were included in the data analysis. The pooled risk ratio of incident COPD in patients with RA versus control was 1.99 (95% CI, 1.61-2.45). The statistical heterogeneity was high with an I2 of 81%.
Our study demonstrated a statistically significant increased risk of subsequent development of COPD among patients with RA.