Cardiovascular co-morbidity in patients with rheumatic diseases

During recent years atherosclerosis, the major cause of cardiovascular disease (CVD), has been recognized as a chronic inflammatory condition where rupture of atherosclerotic lesions appear to play a major role. The risk of CVD is raised in many rheumatic diseases. In SLE, the risk is high, as much as a 50 times increase among middle aged women has been reported. Studies on CVD and atherosclerosis in rheumatic disease could thus give interesting information about CVD and atherosclerosis in addition to being an important clinical problem. A combination of traditional and non-traditional risk factors account for the increased risk of CVD and atheroslerosis in rheumatic disease. One interesting possibility is that atherosclerotic lesions in rheumatic disease are more prone to rupture than "normal" atherosclerotic lesions. It is also likely that increased risk of thrombosis may play an important role, not least in SLE. Further it is not clear if an increased risk of CVD is a general feature of rheumatic disease, or if this only occurs among subgroups of patients.It should be emphasized that there is an apparent lack of treatment studies where CVD in rheumatic disease is the end point. However, control of disease activity and of traditional risk factors appear to be well founded in relation to CVD in rheumatic disease. Further studies are needed to determine the exact role of lipid lowering drugs as statins.Hopefully novel therapies can be developed which target the causes of the inflammation in atherosclerotic lesions both in rheumatic patients and in the general population.

Source: http://arthritis-research.com/content/13/3/225

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