To describe mortality in a cohort of early RA patients treated from the onset with disease-modifying antirheumatic drugs (DMARDs) according to the 'sawtooth' strategy.
A total of 135 early RA patients were followed up for 8-14 years or until death. Causes of death were checked on the death certificates and in patient files. Standardized mortality ratio (SMR) was calculated. Results. A total of 25 (14F, 11M) patients died during the 1422 person-years of follow-up. The SMR (95%CI) was 1.28 (0.83-1.89); 1.69 (0.92-2.82) for women and 0.98 (0.49-1.74) for men. In five cases death was closely related to RA. No one died from amyloidosis. Not a single death was caused by DMARDs in spite of extensive use of these drugs. Patient's age at the start was the only statistically significant predictor for death.
Despite active treatment with available DMARDs, RA seems still to be a fatal disease in a proportion of cases.