title: [Clinical study on mortality of rheumatoid arthritis compared with malignant rheumatoid arthritis].
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  To determine how the mortality of patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) behave in comparison with that of patients with malignant rheumatoid arthritis (MRA).
  
  
  METHODS
  The mortality of RA patients selected at randam identified in 1991-2000 (n = 104) was compared with that of 18 MRA patients. Hazard ratios of death were calculated with a multivariate survival analysis. A clinical study of patients with both RA and MRA was performed in mortality.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Excess mortality was seen in MRA patients in Kaplan-Meier survival curves (p = 0.02 by log-rank test). MRA patients were treated more often with cytostatic and immunosuppressive drugs. Infection was the main cause of death in both RA and MRA patients. Vasculitis was not reported as the cause of death in MRA patients. Secondary amyloidosis played an important role in RA death rather than MRA.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  There remained an excess mortality in MRA patients compared with RA, and infection was attributable to the key cause of death in both RA and MRA suggesting therapeutic side effects.
authors.affiliation: Kumamoto Center for Arthritis and Rheumatology, Kumamoto-city.
authors.forename: T
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Nanamura
authors.forename: Y
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Yamamura
authors.forename: T
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Tsuruta
authors.forename: K
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Tomoda
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Sakaguchi
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Tsukano
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Shono
mesh_terms: D000368:Aged; D001172:Arthritis, Rheumatoid / Q000401:mortality*; D002423:Cause of Death; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D015999:Multivariate Analysis; D016016:Proportional Hazards Models; D015996:Survival Rate