Valvular involvement in patients with rheumatoid arthritis.

BACKGROUND

Although pericarditis is the most commonly recognized cardiac lesion in Rheumatoid Arthritis (RA), this disease affects all the three cardiac layers.

OBJECTIVE

To study valvular lesions in RA, trying to correlate them with other clinical variables, auto antibodies and functional class.

METHODS

One hundred twenty two controls and 184 patients with RA without cardiac symptoms were studied using bidimensional echocardiography. We also studied smoking habits, age and disease duration, rheumatoid factor, antinuclear antibody, anticardiolipin antibodies, rheumatoid nodules and functional class in RA patients.

RESULTS

We found that 28 RA patients (15.2%) had valvular lesions and that the aortic valve was the most affected. Valvular lesions were more common in patients with disease duration longer than 15 years (p=0.013). No association was found between valvular lesions and sex, age, tobacco exposure, rheumatoid factor positivity, presence of antinuclear antibodies, rheumatoid nodules, anticardiolipin antibodies or functional class.

CONCLUSIONS

A small part of RA patients had asymptomatic valvular lesions which occurred more frequently in patients with long disease duration.