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Leukocyte Telomere Length in Rheumatoid Arthritis

Evaluating associations in women

Publish date:: January 25, 2016

Short leukocyte telomere length (LTL) is not associated with subsequent development of rheumatoid arthritis (RA) in women, according to a study of 296 women with incident RA and 827 matched controls. Researchers found:

Meta-analysis showed that longer prediagnostic LTL was associated with 1.51-fold increased RA risk when women in the longest vs shortest LTL tertile were compared.

But, statistically significant between-study heterogeneity was seen for the intermediate tertile category.

Heterogeneity was not seen by menopausal status, inflammatory cytokine levels, age at diagnosis, age at blood collection, body mass index, seropositivity, or HLA-DRβ1 shared epitope status.

Citation: Prescott J, Karlson EW, Orr EH, Zee RYL, De Vivo I, Costenbader KH. A prospective study investigating prediagnostic leukocyte telomere length and risk of developing rheumatoid arthritis in women. [Published online ahead of print January 15, 2016]. J Rheum. doi:10.3899/jrheum.150184.

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