Bone mineral density of postmenopausal women with rheumatoid arthritis depends on disease duration regardless of treatment

Abstract

The aim of this study was to determine the associations of disease activity and disease duration with the bone mineral density (BMD) in rheumatoid arthritis (RA) patients. We also evaluated the associations of biological drugs with bone loss. A total of 138 postmenopausal RA patients were retrospectively assessed to identify the associations of disease activity, disease duration, and biological drug use with BMD. We assessed the associations of disease duration, a C-reactive protein based disease activity score in 28 joints (DAS28), simplified disease activity index, clinical disease activity index, health assessment questionnaire scores, and the use of biological drugs with the lumbar spine, total hip, and femoral neck BMDs using univariate and multivariate linear regression analyses in bisphosphonate treatment and non-bisphosphonate treatment groups at 1 year of follow-up. The multivariate linear regression analyses showed that disease duration was significantly related to the BMD of the femoral neck and total hip regardless of bisphosphonate treatment. The use of biological drugs was not significantly associated with BMD. Hip BMD in postmenopausal women with RA depends on the disease duration regardless of bisphosphonate use. Biological drugs for RA treatment were not negatively associated with general bone loss.

Risk factors for bone loss in patients with rheumatoid arthritis treated with biologic disease-modifying anti-rheumatic drugs

“…Our findings showed that a risk factor for femoral neck BMD reduction was a short disease duration. There is a discrepancy between our results and the findings of previous reports [ 18 , 31 ]. Bone loss was observed in patients with recently diagnosed rheumatoid arthritis, suggesting that the start of the femoral neck bone loss may be much earlier than previously anticipated [ 32 ].…”

“…Several studies showed that glucocorticoid therapy increase intensely risk of vertebral fracture [ 28 – 30 ]. Mori et al reported in a multivariate linear regression analysis that longer RA disease duration was significantly related to the loss of BMD in the femoral neck and total femur [ 31 ]. Our findings showed that a risk factor for femoral neck BMD reduction was a short disease duration.…”

Tocilizumab potentially prevents bone loss in patients with anticitrullinated protein antibody-positive rheumatoid arthritis

“…However, our patients had a longer disease duration and lower baseline T-scores. In a previous study, the disease duration was inversely associated with BMD in female patients with RA [ 30 ]. Disease activity predicts bone loss in early RA [ 31 ].…”

Mouse Models in Bone Fracture Healing Research

“…Despite the inter-species differences between mice and humans in inflammatory mechanisms, the bone turnover is regulated by the immune system in a similar manner. Therefore, different chronic inflammatory comorbid conditions, including rheumatoid arthritis and diabetes, were shown to induce an osteopenic phenotype in both species [60][61][62][63][64][65]. The acute inflammation associated with concomitant trauma also influences fracture healing both in humans and in rodents [5••, 48•, 66, 67].…”