atherosclerosis and rheumatoid arthritis more than a simple association动脉粥样硬化和风湿性关节炎超过一个简单的协会.pdfVIP

Hindawi Publishing Corporation Mediators of Inflammation Volume 2012, Article ID 147354, 8 pages doi:10.1155/2012/147354 Review Article Atherosclerosis and Rheumatoid Arthritis: More Than a Simple Association Lorenzo Cavagna, Nicola Boffini, Giovanni Cagnotto, Flora Inverardi, Vittorio Grosso, and Roberto Caporali Department of Rheumatology, University and IRCCS Foundation Policlinico San Matteo, Viale Golgi 19, 27100 Pavia, Italy Correspondence should be addressed to Lorenzo Cavagna, lorenzo.cavagna@unipv.it Received 25 June 2012; Accepted 10 July 2012 ´ Academic Editor: Miguel A. Gonzalez-Gay Copyright © 2012 Lorenzo Cavagna et al. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. In the last decades a large amount of evidence linked rheumatoid arthritis (RA) to atherosclerosis. In fact, RA patients have an increased risk of cardiovascular events that is not fully explained by other classic cardiovascular risk factors. RA and atherosclerosis may share several common pathomechanisms and inflammation undoubtedly plays a primary role. The proinflammatory cytokines such as tumor necrosis factor alpha and interleukin-6, involved in the pathogenesis of RA, are also independently predictive of subsequent cardiovascular disease (CVD). In RA, inflammation alters HDL constituents and the concentration of LDL and HDL, thus facilitating atherosclerosis and CVD events. On the other hand, also the increase of oxidative processes, frequently observed in RA, induces atherosclerosis. Interestingly, some genetic polymorphisms assoc