RA patients at high risk of degenerative valvular heart disease

Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) may be associated with an increased risk of new-onset degenerative aortic stenosis, aortic regurgitation, and mitral regurgitation, as suggested in a study.

Researchers used data from the UK Biobank and identified 492,745 individuals without valvular heart disease at baseline. They performed Cox proportional hazards analyses to examine the association between prevalent RA and new‐onset degenerative valvular heart disease. This outcome was divided into eight subtypes: aortic stenosis, aortic regurgitation, mitral stenosis, mitral regurgitation, tricuspid stenosis, tricuspid regurgitation, pulmonary stenosis, and pulmonary regurgitation.

A total of 6,673 participants had RA. In this group, 359 cases of degenerative valvular heart disease occurred over a median follow‐up of 13.71 years. In the control group of 486,072 participants without RA (control), a total of 13,518 cases were documented over a median follow‐up of 13.78 years.

RA showed a significant association with a greater risk of aortic stenosis (hazard ratio [HR], 1.64, 95 percent confidence interval [CI], 1.40–1.92), aortic regurgitation (HR, 1.69, 95 percent CI, 1.34–2.13), and mitral regurgitation (HR, 1.54, 95 percent CI, 1.32–1.81).

When stratified by sex, the association of RA with aortic stenosis (p=0.02 for interaction) and mitral regurgitation (p=0.04 for interaction) was especially pronounced in women.

Additional studies are needed to confirm the findings, and if they are, the data may be used to inform primary prevention strategies in high-risk populations, according to the researchers.