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RA-MM Patients Report Higher Disease Activity

Arthritis Rheum; ePub 2016 Nov 11; Radner, et al

Publish date:: November 28, 2016

Multimorbid rheumatoid arthritis (RA-MM) patients have higher levels of patient-rated global RA disease activity (PtGA) compared to RA-only patients, a recent study found. The difference of PtGA is mainly explained by differences in fatigue and pain. Researchers compared PtGA between RA-MM and RA-only patients followed in a longitudinal cohort (n=1,040). They found:

RA-MM reported higher (worse) PtGA, with an increased PtGA associated with more morbidities; this relationship remained significant after adjusting for disease activity, age, and disease duration.
After matching 294 RA-MM with RA-only patients, the pairwise comparison of mean PtGA (in mm) was significantly higher for RA-MM (30.5±24.3) versus RA-only patients (25.6±22.9).

Citation:

Radner H, Yoshida K, Tedeschi S, et al. Different rating of global rheumatoid arthritis (RA) disease activity in multimorbid patients with RA. [Published online ahead of print November 11, 2016]. Arthritis Rheum. doi:10.1002/art.39988.

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