PT  - JOURNAL ARTICLE
AU  - Hyo-Suk Ahn
AU  - Dongjae Lee
AU  - Soo Young  Lee
AU  - Yeong Ho  Kim
AU  - Ji Hyun  Lee
AU  - Dong Soo  Yu
AU  - Kyung-Do Han
AU  - Yong Gyu  Park
AU  - Young Bok  Lee
TI  - Increased cardiovascular risk and all-cause death in patients with Behçet’s disease: a nationwide population-based dynamic cohort study
AID  - 10.3899/jrheum.190408
DP  - 2019 Aug 01
TA  - The Journal of Rheumatology
PG  - jrheum.190408
4099  - http://www.jrheum.org/content/early/2019/07/23/jrheum.190408.short
4100  - http://www.jrheum.org/content/early/2019/07/23/jrheum.190408.full
AB  - Objective Behçet’s disease (BD) is a chronic inflammatory multiorgan disease. An increased risk of cardiovascular disease (CVD) and heightened death rate with BD have been suggested, but, to our knowledge, a nationwide large-scale study has not been conducted to date. This study aimed to determine the overall cardiovascular risk and death rate in BD patients versus controls using the Korean National Health Insurance Service (KNHIS) claim database. Methods Patients with BD (n = 5,576) with no previous history of CVD were selected from 2010 to 2014. An age- and sex-matched control population of individuals without BD (n = 27,880) was randomly sampled at a ratio of 5:1. Both cohorts were followed for incident CVD or all-cause death until 2015. Results : The risks of myocardial infarction [hazard ratio (HR): 1.72, 95% CI: 1.01–2.73] and stroke [HR: 1.65, 95% CI: 1.09–2.50] were significantly higher in BD patients than in control patients. BD patients also had a significantly higher risk of allcause death [HR: 1.82, 95% CI: 1.40–2.37] compared to controls. Conclusion Korean BD patients had a higher overall risk of CVD than did those without BD. Therefore, patients with BD must be carefully monitored for the potential development of CVD to ensure that appropriate early treatments are delivered.