Raynaud's phenomenon in rheumatoid arthritis.

The aim of this study was to evaluate the prevalence of Raynaud's phenomenon in patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA), and to relate this symptom to clinical, radiological and serological characteristics of the patients. All relevant information was retrospectively obtained from the standardized clinical records of 322 RA in-patients first admitted to the Rheumatology Unit of Brest University Medical School. Raynaud's phenomenon was found in 54 (17.2%) of 322 RA patients. There was no significant correlation between demographic, clinical or radiological characteristics. However, the subgroup of RA patients with Raynaud's phenomenon had a slightly higher prevalence of vasculitis than the subgroup without Raynaud's phenomenon. CRP level and C4 level were found to be lower in the former than in the latter group, whereas ESR and various serological findings (rheumatoid factor, antinuclear antibodies) were comparable in the two groups. We conclude that the prevalence of Raynaud's phenomenon is high in French RA in-patients, and that some clinical and biological abnormalities (vasculitis, low CRP level and low C4 level) suggest an association between Raynaud's phenomenon and vasculitis in a few cases, whereas this association might be fortuitous in the remainder.