ABSTRACT

There is an ongoing debate about when and how we should screen rheumatoid arthritis (RA) patients for lung involvement and little is known about the importance of patients’ comorbidities as a risk factor for RA lung involvement. The aim of this study is to reveal the demographic, clinical, and comorbid factors associated with positive lung computed tomography (CT) findings associated with RA.

We screened all RA patients followed at our rheumatology clinic and included those who had a thoracic CT within the past year. We divided the patients into two groups (positive or negative) according to thoracic CT findings. We compared the two groups in terms of demographic, clinical, and comorbid characteristics. We then performed multivariate analysis with a model that includes significantly different features in univariate analyses to find the amount of risk attributed to the factors for positive thoracic CT.

We included 76 RA patients who had thoracic CT. Of these, 43 (56.5%) had positive findings related to RA in thoracic CT. Male gender (p=0.008), anti-cyclic citrullinated peptide antibody positivity (p=0.04), and thyroid diseases (p=0.03) were found significantly more common in the patients with positive thoracic CT findings. Additionally, multivariate analyses found male gender [odds ratio (OR) 7.79, 95% confidence interval (CI) 1.69-35.69] and thyroid diseases (OR 6.17, 95% CI 1.56-24.32) were related to positive CT findings.

In this study conducted in our cohort, we found that male gender and thyroid disease were risk factors for positive thoracic CT findings associated with RA. Clinicians may consider these factors when classifying RA patients for lung involvement and planning thoracic CT for screening.