Mendelian randomization study reveals a causal relationship between rheumatoid arthritis and risk for pre-eclampsia

Epidemiological observational studies have investigated the relationship between rheumatoid arthritis(RA) and pre-eclampsia, but no consistent conclusions were obtained due to various limitations. Hence, we conducted a two-sample mendelian randomization analysis to evaluate the potential causal effect of RA on pre-eclampsia.

Summary-level statistics for RA were derived from a large-scale meta-analysis of datasets of genome-wide association studies(GWAS) which involved 14,361 cases and 43,923 controls. Moreover, summary statistics for pre-eclampsia or eclampsia were sourced from the Finn biobank which contained 3,903 cases and 114,735 controls. The inverse variance weighting (IVW) as well as other four effective methods including MR-Egger, weighted median, weighted mode, and simple mode were applied to deduce the potential causal relationships between RA and pre-eclampsia comprehensively.

The two-sample MR analysis suggested a strong causal relationship between RA and pre-eclampsia[OR,1.05;95%CI, 1.01-1.09;p<0.05]. The OR estimates obtained from the weighted mode[OR,1.09;95%CI,1.03-1.15;p<0.01] and weighted median[OR,1.07;95%CI, 1.01-1.14;p<0.05] were similar to those from the IVW method, but there was no significant association observed in MR Egger and simple mode analysis.

This MR analysis provides evidence of a positive causal association between RA and pre-eclampsia genetically. Our findings highlight the importance of more intensive prenatal care and early intervention among pregnant women with RA to prevent potential adverse obstetric outcomes. Moreover, our study provides clues for risk factor identification and early prediction of pre-eclampsia.