Introduction. Comorbidity in rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is one of the most urgent problems of modern rheumatology. For example, 58% of patients with RA have at least one concomitant disease, and 25% — more comorbidities.
Aims and objectives. To study the frequency and structure of comorbid disease in patients with RA.
Methods. We examined 102 patients with RA at the age of 28 to 82 years (mean age — (53.6± ±1.26) years), of whom women — 88 (86.3%) people, males — 14 (13.7%) people.
Results. In 95.1% of patients there were revealed RA combination with other diseases. Cardiovascular pathology was diagnosed in 54.8% of patients and is the first among comorbid diseases. In the structure of comorbid conditions hypertension prevailed (42.1% of patients). Pathology of the thyroid gland took the second place in the structure of comorbidity in RA and was diagnosed in 19.6% of patients, most of whom were middle-aged women — 31.8%. Chronic viral hepatitis was diagnosed in 11%, including 10% — chronic viral hepatitis C, 1% — chronic viral hepatitis B.
Conclusions
1. Comorbid pathology was observed in the majority (95.1%) patients with RA, particularly in older age groups.
2. Among the comorbid conditions there were prevalent cardiovascular disease (54.8%), endocrine pathology (19.6%) and chronic viral hepatitis (11%).