B. Purushottam Rao1, S. Praneeth2, V. V. Satyanarayana3
INTRODUCTION: Rheumatoid arthritis is a chronic systemic inflammatory disorder that affects many tissue organs such as skin, blood vessels, heart, lungs and muscles but principally affects joints producing synovitis that often progress to tissue destruction of articular cartilage and ankylosis of joints. Pulmonary manifestations in rheumatoid arthritis are varied as the pleura, lung, parenchyma, airways and pulmonary vasculature all can be involved.
AIM AND OBJECTIVES: To study the incidence of pleuropulmonary manifestations of Rheumatoid Arthritis in patients who were confirmed to have rheumatoid arthritis by 2010 ACR criteria. 6
METHODOLOGY: This prospective study was carried out at King George Hospital, Visakhapatnam, Andhra Pradesh. It is a Tertiary Care Hospital. The study was conducted from January 2013 to December 2014.
RESULTS: A total of sixty patients who were confirmed to have rheumatoid arthritis were included in this study. Of these, female patients were 34 (56.66%) and males were 26 (43.33%). In this study, out of sixty patients of rheumatoid arthritis 24 patients (40%) had pleuropulmonary manifestations.
CONCLUSION: Rheumatoid Arthritis is prevalent in females but pleuropulmonary manifestations are common in males. Prevalence of pleuropulmonary manifestations is independent of duration of rheumatoid arthritis. But presence of pleuropulmonary manifestations indicate the severity of disease process.
