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. 2024 Jan 18;79(2):182-185.
doi: 10.1136/thorax-2023-220022.

Short peripheral blood leukocyte telomere length in rheumatoid arthritis-interstitial lung disease

Affiliations

Short peripheral blood leukocyte telomere length in rheumatoid arthritis-interstitial lung disease

Tracy J Doyle et al. Thorax. .

Abstract

Shortened telomere lengths (TLs) can be caused by single nucleotide polymorphisms and loss-of-function mutations in telomere-related genes (TRG), as well as ageing and lifestyle factors such as smoking. Our objective was to determine if shortened TL is associated with interstitial lung disease (ILD) in individuals with rheumatoid arthritis (RA). This is the largest study to demonstrate and replicate that shortened peripheral blood leukocytes-TL is associated with ILD in patients with RA compared with RA without ILD in a multinational cohort, and short PBL-TL was associated with baseline disease severity in RA-ILD as measured by forced vital capacity percent predicted.

Keywords: interstitial fibrosis; rheumatoid lung disease.

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Conflict of interest statement

Competing interests: TJD reports grant funding and other support from Bristol Myers Squibb, Genentech, and Bayer and personal fees from Boehringer Ingelheim, unrelated to this study. PA-J reports personal fees from Bristol Myers Squibb, Boehringer Ingelheim, Astra-Zeneca and Medac unrelated to this study. MEW reports grant funding from Amgen, Bristol Myers Squibb, Eli Lilly; personal fees from Bristol Myers Squibb, Sanofi, and Eli Lilly, Abbvie, Arena Pharmaceuticals, CorEvitas, GlaxoSmithKline, Horizon Therapeutics, Pfizer, Scipher Medicine, and Setpoint Medical; and other funding from Scipher Medicine, Can-Fite Biopharma, Inmedix, and VersaPharm, unrelated to this study. NAS reports grant funding from Bristol Myers Squibb, Sanofi, Amgen, Crescendo Bioscience, Eli Lilly, and Mallinckrodt Pharmaceuticals and personal fees from Bristol Myers Squibb, unrelated to this study. RG receives grant support from Canon Medical Systems. HH reports grants from Canon Medical Systems, grants from Konica Minolta Inc, personal fees from Mitsubishi Chemical Co, personal fees from Canon Medical Systems Inc. MN reports grants from AstraZeneca, grants from Daiichi Sankyo, grants from Canon Medical Systems, grants from Merck investigator studies program, personal fees from Daiichi Sankyo, and personal fees from AstraZeneca. PFD has been a clinical investigator for Boehringer Ingelheim, Bristol Myers Squibb, and Genentech and currently works on an Advisory Committee for the FDA. JAS has received research support from Bristol Myers Squibb and performed consultancy for AbbVie, Amgen, Boehringer Ingelheim, Bristol Myers Squibb, Gilead, Inova Diagnostics, Janssen, Optum, and Pfizer unrelated to this work. IOR reports grant funding from Genentech, unrelated to this study. KDD has received investigator-initiated grant funding from Janssen Research and Development and Pfizer, unrelated to this study; in addition, KDD reports serving as consultant for Inova Diagnostics, Inc., Bristol Myers Squibb and Exagen Diagnostics, and he has received free research assays from Inova Diagnostics, Inc., not used for this study; KDD has also received investigator-initiated grant from Janssen and Pfizer that are unrelated to this project. MKD has been the recipient of two investigator-initiated grants from Boehringer Ingelheim and Pfizer, unrelated to this research. PJW reports grants from Genentech, grants and personal fees for advisory board work from Boehringer Ingelheim and Sanofi, personal fees for advisory board work from Blade Pharmaceuticals, grants and personal fees for lectures from Pliant, outside the submitted work. JSL reports grants and other support from the NIH, Galapagos, Boehringer Ingelheim, United Therapeutics, Eleven P15, Bonac, Avalyn and the Pulmonary Fibrosis Foundation, outside the submitted work. PD reports grant funding and other support from Boehringer Ingelheim, Bristol Myers Squibb and Pfizer and personal fees from Bristol Myers Squibb, Sanofi, Lilly, Abbvie, Pfizer, Medac, Novartis, UCB Pharma and Boehringer Ingelheim, unrelated to this study. BC reports grant funding from Boehringer Ingelheim, Bristol Myers Squibb and Roche and personal fees from Astra Zeneca, Boehringer Ingelheim, Bristol Myers Squibb, CSL Behring, GSK, Novartis, Rochen and Sanofi, unrelated to this study.

Figures

Figure 1:
Figure 1:
Telomere length and age for RA-noILD (○) and RA-ILD (●) in the pooled group with their respective fitted lines.

References

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