Why the study?
Are there differences in echocardiographic indices of cardiac involvement between patients with rheumatoid arthritis and control subjects?
Are there differences in echocardiographic indices of cardiac involvement between patients with rheumatoid arthritis and control subjects?
While diastolic function indexes did not differ from controls, a quarter of rheumatoid arthritis patients exhibited left ventricular abnormalities suggestive of myocardial fibrosis on echocardiography.
Thirty-nine consecutive patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) and 40 control subjects were studied by echocardiography in order to assess the incidence of cardiac involvement in this disease. The occurrence of anatomic lesions in our series was lower than that observed in other studies. No differences in mean values of left and right ventricular diastolic function indexes obtained by Doppler echocardiography were found between patients and controls. However, in 26% of patients with RA, left ventricular abnormalities probably secondary to myocardial fibrosis were observed.
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Maione et al. (2008) studied this question.
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