Clinical study of rheumatoid arthritis patients associated with thyroid function abnormalities / 中华风湿病学杂志

ABSTRACT

Objective To investigate the clinical features of rheumatoid arthritis (RA) associated with thyroid function abnormalities.Methods Serum thyroid function,anti-thyroglobulin antibodies (TGAb) and anti-thyroid peroxidase antibodies (TPOAb) were detected in 186 RA patients.Clinical data were then analyzed.Comparison of continuous data between groups was made by t test,while comparison of categorical data was made by x2 test.The non-normal distribution of the data was analyzed by Mann-Whitney U rank sum test.Results Fifty-six RA cases (30％) had abnormal thyroid function,including 25 low T3 syndrome cases,16 subclinical hypothyroidism cases,10 hypothyroidism cases and 5 Graves' disease cases.Among them 23 cases were diagnosed as Hashimoto's thyroiditis.The positive rate in the hypothyroidism group with chills (45 cases,80.3％,x2=99.94),lazy words (14 cases,25.0％;x2=7.896),lethargy (24 cases,42.9％;x2=7.433) and abdominal distension (21 cases,37.5％;x2=7.15) was higher than that in the group with normal thyroid function (all P＜0.05).Level of serum high density lipoprotein was decreased in hypothyroid group [(1.0±0.5) mmol/L vs (1.4±0.6) mmol/L,t=4.087,P＜0.05].Patients with abnormal thyroid function had higher positive rate of ANA [(10 cases,7.7％) vs (25 cases,44.5％),x2=34.98],anti-SSA [(3 cases,2.3％) vs (23 cases,41.1％),x2=48.91],anti-SSB [(2 cases,1.5％) vs (12 cases,21.4％),x2=22.25],TGAb [(20 cases,15.4％) vs (43 cases,76.7％),x2=65.88] and TPOAb [(13 cases,10.0％) vs (27 cases,48.2％),x2=35.90] than those with normal thyroid function (all P＜O.05).Conclusion Rheumatoid arthritis is often accompanied by thyroid disease.The positive rate of auto-antibodies in RA with abnormal thyroid function is higher than those with normal thyroid function and has no relationship with the disease activity.