Mortality and incidence of malignancy in Korean patients with rheumatoid arthritis

To determine the standardized mortality ratio (SMR) and standardized incidence ratio (SIR) for malignancy in Korean patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA).

We enrolled 1534 patients with RA who fulfilled the American College of Rheumatology criteria, from October 2001 to December 2007. Baseline assessment included sociodemographic variables, laboratory findings including rheumatoid factor, anticitrullinated protein antibody, functional class, radiological stage, medication, and the Korean version of the Health Assessment Questionnaire. We used the national mortality rate from 2001 to 2007 from the Korean National Statistical Office (KNSO) and the incidence rate from the Korean Central Cancer Registry (KCCR) from 2001 to 2007 as comparison data for estimates of SMR and SIR. Confidence intervals were calculated based on the Poisson distribution.

There were 57 deaths in 6683 person-years of followup. The number of expected deaths (derived from the KNSO) was 42.33 and the SMR for patients with RA was 1.35 (95% CI 1.02-1.74). The main causes of death were malignancy, cardiovascular disease, and respiratory disease. In the cause-specific SMR, deaths from respiratory disease, especially from interstitial lung disease (ILD) and pneumonia, were significantly higher than expected: 4.66 (95% CI 2.13-8.85) for all respiratory disease, 18.18 (95% CI 2.20-65.64) for ILD, and 10.26 (95% CI 2.79-26.26) for pneumonia. Thirty malignancies had occurred in 1501 patients. The number of expected malignancies derived from the KCCR was 34.91, yielding a SIR for cancer of 0.86 (95% CI 0.58-1.23).

Our study demonstrates that the SMR was slightly higher in patients with RA, but the incidence rates of malignancies were not significantly different from the general population. But deaths from respiratory diseases were significantly higher.