To compare all-cause mortality rates and the incidence of major vascular events among patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA), osteoarthritis (OA) without RA, or no arthritis using the UK General Practice Research Database (GPRD) while adjusting for age and sex. Clinic-based studies have found that patients with RA have higher all-cause and cardiovascular (CV) mortality than those without RA, after adjusting for age and sex. Much smaller elevations in risk have been found in the few community-based studies that have addressed this question.
After excluding patients with a history of myocardial infarction or cerebrovascular events, we followed a retrospective cohort of patients 40 years and older from GPRD practices until the earliest of death, disenrollment, or the occurrence of an incident vascular event. Using Poisson regression we compared age and gender adjusted incidence rates for RA, OA, or no arthritis.
Five hundred and ninety-four practices contributed 2.37 million patients (1.11 million men and 1.26 million women) to the analysis. Over a mean duration of followup of almost 5 years, age and gender adjusted all-cause mortality rates were 60 to 70% higher in patients with RA compared to patients with OA and those with no arthritis. For the various vascular endpoints, the age and gender adjusted incidence rates were 30 to 60% higher in patients with RA compared to both patients with OA and those with no arthritis during the study period. The rates in patients with OA and those with no arthritis were essentially the same.
Compared to patients with OA and those with no arthritis, patients with RA had a higher age and gender adjusted incidence of all-cause mortality and of major vascular events during almost 5 years of followup.