To determine if the presence of HLA-DR disease-associated epitopes predicts the need for total joint arthroplasty or joint fusion in rheumatoid arthritis (RA).
Tertiary-referral, monocenter study. Three hundred RA patients (1987 ACR criteria) were retrospectively evaluated; outcome measure was recourse to total joint arthroplasty, joint fusion or bone resection. HLA-DR1 and DR4 were considered as the disease-associated epitopes (subtypes were not available for analysis). Analysis was performed using the lifetable method (Kaplan-Meyer technique).
Of the 300 patients included, 78% were women, mean age: 56+/-14 years, mean RA follow-up: 12+/-9 years. Phenotyping: 73% of patients carried one (52%) or two (21%) disease-associated epitopes. Surgery was performed on 24% of the patients during follow-up. The most frequent surgery was total hip arthroplasty (13% of patients). According to lifetable analysis, 13% of patients had surgery (total joint arthroplasty or joint fusion) after 10 years of follow-up, 34% after 20 years. years of follow-up, There was no statistically significant difference in recourse to surgery according to absence or presence (single or double-dose) of disease-associated epitopes. Similar results were observed if the event was the second surgical procedure on a given patient.
This study failed to demonstrate a relation between HLA phenotyping and the severity of RA defined by the requirement for surgery.