Rheumatoid arthritis patients have a significantly reduced risk of cardiovascular events if their disease is under control, research shows.

The study of almost 25,000 RA patients from the CORONNA registry who were followed up for 2.7 years found a 21% reduction in CV risk for each 10 point lowering of the Clinical Disease Activity Index and a 53% reduction from high disease activity to remission.

The findings remained even after adjusting for the use of immunomodulatory treatment, suggesting that controlling disease activity may be a more important management strategy than use of an immodulator — at least in the context of preventing CV events —  said the researchers led by Daniel Solomon from Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston.

“This is a hypothesis worth testing especially as enthusiasm grows for use of combination synthetic DMARDs,” they wrote in their paper published in Arthritis and Rheumatology.

While the findings should not be interpreted to mean that traditional risk factors are not important, they do support the current RA recommendations for treating to low disease activity or remission,” they added.