TYPE 2 DIABETES MELLITUS RISK ASSESSMENT USING FINDRISC IN PATIENTS WITH RHEUMATOID ARTHRITIS

Objective : to investigate the prevalence of traditional risk factors (RFs) and to determine a 10-year risk for type 2 (T2) diabetes mellitus (DM), by using the Finnish Diabetes Risk Score (FINDRISC) in patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA). Subjects and methods. The investigation enrolled 418 RA patients without a history of DM. The median age of the participants was 54 [41; 63] years; the median disease duration was 6 [2; 12] years. Most of the patients were positive for rheumatoid factor (75.6%) and anti-cyclic citrullinated peptide antibodies (77.3%) and had moderate and high RA activity (81.8%). Glucocorticoids (GCs), disease-modifying anti-rheumatic drugs, and biological agents were used in 42.1, 66.7, and 23.9% of the patients, respectively. FINDRISC was used to assess the risk of T2DM. A control group consisted of 100 gender- and age-matched individuals without inflammatory joint diseases or DM. Results and discussion. The most common modifiable traditional RFs in RA were abdominal obesity (AO) (63.6%), overweight (50.7%), and lack of physical activity (70.3%); the non-modifiable RF was age older than 45 years (69.1%). The RA and control groups showed the similar prevalence of RFs, except for AO that was more common in the absence of inflammatory joint diseases (75.0%) (p = 0.03). The number of RFs did not differ in RA patients (median RFs, 4 [2; 5]) and control individuals (4 [3; 5]) (p = 0.23). The moderate risk of developing T2DM in the ensuing ten years was 20.1 and 18.0% in RA patients and control individuals, respectively; the high risk was in 19.6 and 24.0% and the very high risk was in 2.7 and 2.0%, respectively (p > 0.05 in all cases). In RA, there was a weak correlation between the number of RFs and DAS28 (r = 0.10; p = 0.05), RFs and HAQ (r = 0.19; p < 0.01). Examinations detected fasting hyperglycemia (glucose ≥6.1 mmol/l) in 3.8% of the RA patients with a low/slightly increased risk for T2DM and in 16.1% of those with its moderate, high, and very high risks (p < 0.01). The use of GCs did not affect the number of RFs, the distribution of groups at risk for DM, and the frequency of hyperglycemia. These findings can lead to the conclusion that the risk of developing T2DM in RA is associated with a high frequency of modifiable traditional RFs, such as obesity and lack of physical activity. FINDRISC is a simple method to identify RA patients who need lifestyle monitoring and modification, as well as an additional examination to rule out latent T2DM.