“Although we did not see an association of FDG uptake with abnormal heart structure or function in this cross-sectional analysis of RA patients with no clinical cardiovascular disease, it is possible that myocardial inflammation precedes any structural or functional changes. Further longitudinal studies are needed to assess the impact of baseline myocardial inflammation on adverse myocardial changes over time,” Dr. Bathon said.
In a related nested sub-study involving eight of the RA patients, the Columbia team found that treatment with disease-modifying antirheumatic drugs (DMARDs) appears to improve subclinical myocardial inflammation.
“In this longitudinal study, where we looked at myocardial inflammation before and six months after step-up therapy, we saw that patients responded to the therapy, and with a decrease of disease activity we saw decreased inflammation in the heart,” Dr. Amigues said. “Disease activity is linked to heart inflammation and treating RA does help with the heart inflammation.”
The study had no commercial funding and the authors have disclosed no relevant financial relationships.
SOURCE: http://bit.ly/2fFuLHu and http://bit.ly/2fx3Sb0
American College of Rheumatology Annual Meeting 2016.
