TITLE:
Correlation of Serum Uric Acid with Disease Activity and C-Reactive Protein in Patients Suffering from Rheumatoid Arthritis
AUTHORS:
Biswadip Ghosh, Debasish Baidya, Pampa Halder, Shamash Mandal
KEYWORDS:
Uric Acid, Rheumatoid Arthritis, CDAI, CRP
JOURNAL NAME:
Open Journal of Rheumatology and Autoimmune Diseases,
Vol.6 No.3,
August
31,
2016
ABSTRACT: Rheumatoid Arthritis is characterized by increased cardiovascular morbidity and mortality that
cannot be fully explained by the presence of classical cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk factors
suggesting that novel risk factors may play a role. Evidence accumulated over the past decade
points that uric acid (UA) may be one such novel CVD risk factor in rheumatoid arthritis, and
therefore one may hypothesize that UA may contribute to the increased CVD burden in RA. The
current study attempted to correlate the levels of clinical disease activity index (CDAI), high sensitivity
C reactive protein (hs-CRP) and uric acid in DMARD naive non-diabetic, non-hypertensive,
euthyroid patients with normal lipid profile suffering from early and established Rheumatoid
Arthritis before and after 3 months of DMARD therapy. It showed a positive and significant correlation
among uric acid levels and CDAI and hs-CRP levels at diagnosis. There was significant reduction
in the levels of CDAI, hs-CRP and UA after 3 months of DMARD therapy with significant
correlation among the changes in the 3 parameters and the change in Uric Acid also correlated
with the levels of CDAI and hs-CRP at diagnosis. We propose to measure uric acid both as acute
phase reactant and marker for cardiovascular morbidity in patients suffering from Rheumatoid
Arthritis.