Impaired fasting glucose and sulfonylureas increased the risk of major cardiovascular events in patients with inflammatory arthritis.

OBJECTIVES

To evaluate the effect of impaired fasting glucose (IFG) and various anti-diabetic agents on the risk of incident major cardiovascular events (MACE) in patients with inflammatory arthritis (IA) including rheumatoid arthritis (RA) and psoriatic arthritis (PsA).

METHODS

This was a population-based retrospective cohort study. Patient identification and data retrieval were conducted using a big data platform (The Hospital Authority Data Collaboration Lab) in Hong Kong. Patients with IA were recruited from Jan 2006 to Dec 2015 and followed up until the end of 2018. Time-dependent Cox proportional hazards regression models were used to analyze the association between fasting glucose (FG) levels and anti-diabetic drug use with MACE in IA patients.

RESULTS

A total of 13,905 patients (12,233 RA and 1,672 PsA) were included. 934 patients (6.7%) developed the first MACE after a total of 119,571 patient-years of follow-up. More patients in the MACE group had IFG (FG 5.6-6.9 mmol/l) (19.4% vs. 15.2%, p < 0.001) and FG ≥ 7 mmol/l (17.6% vs. 8.1%, p < 0.001) at baseline. In the subgroup of patients who were not taking any anti-diabetic medications, a prediabetic state was found to be independently associated with a higher risk of MACE (HR 2.43, 95%CI 1.97-2.99 in CRP model and HR 2.54, 95%CI 1.50-7.71 in ESR model). On the other hand, in patients with diabetes, sulfonylurea use increased the risk of MACE development by 55% (HR 1.55, 95%CI 1.14-2.09) after adjusting for other covariates.

CONCLUSIONS

In a large cohort of patients with IA, IFG and sulfonylureas use were found to be independently associated with an increased risk of incident MACE.