When a rheumatoid arthritis patient presents with respiratory symptoms, clinicians would do well to consider COPD, a new commentary in The Lancet Respiratory Medicine suggests.
While the most feared pulmonary manifestation in RA is interstitial lung disease, less is known about the co-existence of COPD, according to the authors of a new Danish paper that finds a one in 10 RA patients have COPD and consequently are at greater risk of dying earlier.
Using data from medical registries, the study authors found a 1-year mortality rate of 15% in patients with both diseases, compared to 4.2% in matched patients with RA alone.
This jumped to a 5-year mortality rate of 41.9% in patients with both diseases, compared to 20.9% for RA alone.
“The excess mortality is striking,” they wrote.