Table 1.

Glucocorticoid therapy and incidence of subclinical atherosclerosis

Study	Type	No. Patients	No. Controls	Daily Dose	Cumulative Dose	GC Duration, yrs	Subclinical Atherosclerosis	Results	Comments
Gonzalez-Juanatey 2003³	Case-control	RA 47	47		15.9 g mean	≥ 5	cIMT plaque	No correlation cumulative PDN-plaque
Gonzalez-Juanatey 2003⁴	Case-control	RA 55	31	Mean 10 mg/day		≥ 5	FMD	No correlation cumulative PDN-FMD
Gonzalez-Juanatey 2004⁵	Case-control	RA 47	47	Mean 10 mg/day			LVDD	No correlation cumulative PDN-LVDD
del Rincon 2004⁶	Prosp	RA 427	220	Mean 6.4 mg	Low 5–6.0 mg, medium 6–16 mg, high 16–122 mg	Mean 7.5	cIMT, plaque, ABI	Increased plaque/ABI in higher dose	cIMT/plaque/ABI with duration of exposure
Hafström 2007⁷	Prosp	Early RA 34	31	DMARD + PDN 7.5 mg/day vs DMARD		2 ± 2	cIMT plaque, FMD	No difference	Higher total cholesterol in PDN
Vettori 2010⁸	Case-control	50 SSc	41	Low-medium (5–15 mg/day) in 62%	30% no PDN, 28% < 5 g, 16% 5–10 g, 26% > 10 g		IMT > 0.9 mm plaque	OR 1.15 in higher cumulative dose
Giles 2011⁹	Prosp	158 RA	No		Median 3.1 g (0–9.1)		cIMT/plaque progression at mean 3.2 yrs	Association cumulative PDN-cIMT progression	Lower cIMT progression in PDN users on statin therapy

cIMT: carotid intima-media thickness; ABI: ankle-brachial index; FMD: flow-mediated vasodilation; LVDD: left ventricular diastolic dysfunction; GC: glucocorticoid; PDN: prednisone; Prosp: prospective; RA: rheumatoid arthritis; DMARD: disease-modifying antirheumatic drug.