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. 2015 Jan;74(1):74-81.
doi: 10.1136/annrheumdis-2013-203789. Epub 2013 Sep 18.

Hand osteoarthritis in relation to mortality and incidence of cardiovascular disease: data from the Framingham heart study

Ida K Haugen  1 , Vasan S Ramachandran  2 , Devyani Misra  3 , Tuhina Neogi  3 , Jingbo Niu  3 , Tianzhong Yang  3 , Yuqing Zhang  3 , David T Felson  3
Affiliations

Hand osteoarthritis in relation to mortality and incidence of cardiovascular disease: data from the Framingham heart study

Ida K Haugen et al. Ann Rheum Dis. 2015 Jan.

Abstract

Objectives: To study whether hand osteoarthritis (OA) is associated with increased mortality and cardiovascular events in a large community based cohort (Framingham Heart Study) in which OA, mortality and cardiovascular events have been carefully assessed.

Methods: We examined whether symptomatic (≥1 joint(s) with radiographic OA and pain in the same joint) and radiographic hand OA (≥1 joint(s) with radiographic OA without pain) were associated with mortality and incident cardiovascular events (coronary heart disease, congestive heart failure and/or atherothrombotic brain infarction) using Cox proportional hazards models. In the adjusted models, we included possible confounding factors from baseline (eg, metabolic factors, medication use, smoking/alcohol). We also adjusted for the number of painful joints in the lower limb and physical inactivity.

Results: We evaluated 1348 participants (53.8% women) with mean (SD) age of 62.2 (8.2) years, of whom 540 (40.1%) and 186 (13.8%) had radiographic and symptomatic hand OA, respectively. There was no association between hand OA and mortality. Although there was no significant relation to incident cardiovascular events overall or a relation of radiographic hand OA with events, we found a significant association between symptomatic hand OA and incident coronary heart disease (myocardial infarction/coronary insufficiency syndrome) (HR 2.26, 95% CI 1.22 to 4.18). The association remained after additional adjustment for pain in the lower limb or physical inactivity.

Conclusions: Symptomatic hand OA, but not radiographic hand OA, was associated with an increased risk of coronary heart disease events. The results suggest an effect of pain, which may be a possible marker of inflammation.

Keywords: Cardiovascular Disease; Epidemiology; Hand Osteoarthritis; Osteoarthritis.

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Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Flowcharts for the Original (A) and Offspring (B) cohorts. OA, osteoarthritis.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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