Association between ischemic stroke and seropositive rheumatoid arthritis in Korea: A nationwide longitudinal cohort study

by Dong Hyun Lee, Seung Hun Sheen, Dong-Geun Lee, Jae-Won Jang, Dong Chan Lee, Seung-Ho Shin, In-bo Han, Je Beom Hong, Hakyung Kim, Seil Sohn The purpose of this longitudinal follow-up study was to investigate the risk of ischemic stroke nationwide in patients with seropositive rheumatoid arthritis (RA) and controls who were matched in age and sex. Patient data were collected from the National Health Insurance Service (NHIS) Health Scre ening (HEALS) cohort. Using the International Classification of Diseases code M05 (seropositive RA), with a prescription of any disease-modifying anti-rheumatic drug (DMARD), RA was identified. A total of 2,765 patients and 13,825 control subjects were included in our study. The 12-year incidence of ischemic stroke in each group was calculated using the Kaplan–Meier method. The risk ratio of ischemic stroke was estimated using Cox proportional hazards regression. Sixty-four patients (2.31%) in the seropositive RA group and 512 (3.70%) in the control group experienced ischemic stroke (P
Source: PLoS One - Category: Biomedical Science Authors: Source Type: research