Cardiovascular Risk, Myocardial Fibrosis and Heart Failure in Rheumatoid Arthritis: Screening and Prognosis

Detailed Summary

Cardiovascular disease is the leading cause of death in RA patients. This increased risk may be apparent even before the clinical recognition of RA. The optimal approach for identification of patients with increased CV risk has yet to be fully established and a substantial proportion of RA patients at high risk remain unidentified. Heart failure (HF) has been recently recognized as an important contributory factor to the excess CV mortality associated with RA (more than myocardial ischemia), and RA patients with concomitant HF have twice the risk of CV death compared with patients with RA alone. HF in RA typically presents with occult or atypical clinical symptomatology, tend to be managed less aggressively and have poorer outcomes. For developing effective preventive strategies, the evaluation of patients in early asymptomatic stages is of great importance. The investigators propose to perform an observational longitudinal study (with cases and controls) including RA patients (with and without HF) from a single centre to determine cardiovascular profiles that may be associated with higher risk for developing symptomatic HF and CV events. For this purpose the investigators will use clinical, echocardiographic, serum biomarker, and genetic data

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