Frequency of autoimmune thyroiditis in patients with rheumatoid arthritis aneffect D its on the clinic

ABSTRACT Frequency of Autoimmune Thyroiditis In Patients With Rheumatoid Arthritis And Its Effect On The Clinic Object: Rheumatoid Arthritis (RA) is a chronic, systemic, immune-mediated inflammatory disease of unknown etiology that can lead to erosion and deformities in the joints and related tissues. Both adaptive and natural immune responses play a role in the progression of this disease. It can be considered that autoimmune elements may have common features of thyroid autoimmunity and RA, both of its two diseases can likely coexist. We aimed to look at the frequency and effect of autoimmune thyroiditis in RA patients who come to the outpatient clinic. Material and Method: The study group included 150 randomly selected patients who were followed up at the Çukurova University Faculty of Medicine, Department of Rheumatology, and met the criteria of the International Working Group's Classification of Rheumatoid Arthritis. Patient age, disease duration, presence of thyroid disease, medications, activity criteria (DAS28), laboratory findings (Hemogram, ESH, CRP, RF, ANTI-CCP, ANA, TSH, FT4, FT3, Anti-TPO, Anti-Tg) and a Patient Tracking Form which contains the Health Assessment Questionnaire data. Thyroid USG was performed by Nuclear Medicine U.S.A., and thyroid gland size, parenchymal echogenicity, vascularity, and presence of nodules were evaluated. SPSS (Statistical Package for the Social Sciences) 23.0 package program was used for statistical analysis of the data. The statistical significance level was taken as 0.05 in all tests. Results: In our study, 81.3% (n: 122) of our RA patients and 93.3% (n: 14) of those with autoimmune thyroid disease were women. Similar to other studies, our 150 RA patients had increased frequency of Anti-TPO (20.7%, n: 31) and Anti Tg (12%, n: 18). In our study, the frequency of autoimmune thyroiditis in RA patients was 10% (n: 15). There was no significant relationship between Anti-CCP and Anti-TPO and Anti-Tg (p> 0.05). In our study, the height of DAS 28 CRP, DAS 28 ESR, HAQ scores were found to be statistically significant in patients diagnosed with OITH (p <0.05). These results suggest that RA activity may be associated with the presence of thyroid autoantibodies. In our study, no effect of levothyroxine use on disease activity was observed. Conclusion: There is a common association between RA and OITH, and therefore patients with RA should be carefully monitored for thyroid disease. Our results suggest that OITH association may increase RA disease activity. This finding may be useful in the clinical evaluation of RA patients. Keywords: Rheumatoid arthritis, autoimmune thyroid disease, frequency, DAS 28