A Study to Evaluate the Thyroid Function in Sero Positive Rheumatoid Arthritis.

Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is a most common progressive, multi-systemic autoimmune disease characterized by chronic inflammation of multiple joints with associated systemic manifestations. RA has an estimated prevalence of 0.5 -1% of the adult population worldwide and is a leading cause of chronic morbidity and mortality in the industrialized world.A systematic analysis with RA showed 76% had one or more extra-articular feature. Thyroid hormone dysfunction and /or autoimmune thyroid disease were present in 6% to 33% patients with Rheumatoid Arthritis. We conducted a hospital based observational, descriptive study from July 2018 until the number of sample are met. 260 RA patients who are attendind OPD & IPD, that meet inclusion and exclusion criteria. The present study included the patients ranging from 15 years to above 65 years. It was observed that maximum cases were in the age group of 35-45 years (37.31%). The mean age of the study participants was 40.80±10.91years. In the present study we found that rheumatoid arthritis was more common in females 212 (81.54%) than the male cases 48(18.46%). In the present study we found that thyroid dysfunction is observed in 20% of patients. The most common thyroid dysfunction observed was overt hypothyroidism seen in 10.77% of the patients followed by subclinical hypothyroidism seen in 8.46% and subclinical hyperthyroidism 0.77% of patients. Anti-TPO antibodies were seen in 82.14% of patients with clinically overt hypothyroidism. Majority of the cases of rheumatoid arthritis are in the age group of 40.80 ±10.91 years and females account for the majority of the cases of rheumatoid arthritis. In our study thyroid dysfunction are observed in 20% of patients. Prevalence of thyroid dysfunctions in rheumatoid arthritis is high and associated with thyroid autoimmunity and suggested that all rheumatoid arthritis patients should go for thyroid functions.

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© Journal of the Association of Physicians of India 2011.