Almost 1.3 million Americans have rheumatoid arthritis (RA), a painful chronic condition that stiffens two or more joints.  Heart failure often accompanies RA although, until recently, no direct link between the two has been established.  Having discovered the link, the researchers suggest earlier detection of heart failure in RA patients may significantly reduce the number of lives lost to heart failure.  Women get RA more than twice as often as men.

University of Pittsburgh assistant professor, Kimberly Liang, MD, and her team used ultrasound technologies to establish heart health in 149 RA patients with no history of heart failure and 1,405 people without the bone disease, all residents of Minnesota’s Olmstead County.  In addition to the echocardiograms, each study participant a completed questionnaire defining medical history and lifestyle.

The RA group proved to be more likely to have a particular diastolic dysfunction of the heart (by 38.9%) than the RA-free group (28.8%).  This particular dysfunction causes the heart ventricles to stiffen, making it impossible for these two chambers of the heart to fill adequately with blood, a situation that threatens heart failure if left untreated.

The RA group was also more likely to experience high blood pressure in the pulmonary arteries, located in the lungs and right side of the heart, than the RA-free control group.

Both the diastolic dysfunction and the high pulmonary arterial pressure were discovered first during the cardiac ultrasound exams but were not yet apparent to the patient nor to his or her physician during a routine office exam.  Liang’s research suggests the merit of adding echocardiograms to routine check-ups for RA patients in order to detect and begin treatment before heart failure threatens.

Liang presented her findings in San Francisco last week during the annual meeting of the American College of Rheumatology.  Liang, currently teaching at the University of Pittsburgh, conducted this research when she was at the Mayo Clinic.

Source: American College of Rheumatology