Does a diagnosis of rheumatoid arthritis increase the risk of myocardial infarction and stroke in women?
Women with rheumatoid arthritis have a significantly increased risk of myocardial infarction, suggesting a need for aggressive coronary heart disease prevention strategies in this population.
In this large prospective cohort of women, participants with rheumatoid arthritis had a significantly increased risk of myocardial infarction but not stroke compared with those without rheumatoid arthritis. If these data are confirmed, aggressive coronary heart disease prevention strategies should be tested for persons with rheumatoid arthritis.
Solomon et al. (Mon,) studied this question.