Inflammatory arthritis is a non-communicable disease characterized by profound inflammation in body tissues. The condition also comes with a greater propensity for systemic illness, with cardiovascular disease being a major cause of mortality and morbidity amongst these patients. Our research project asks if routine DXA scan results can assist in identifying inflammatory arthritis patients at higher risk of cardiovascular events, with an aim to investigate any association between Bone Mineral Density and CVD risk in these patients. Our end goal objective is earlier CVD risk detection, with a hope to identify patients in need of preventative measures.
Our hypothesis states that bone mineral density (BMD) on DXA scan does have an association with CVD risk in patients with a new diagnosis of inflammatory arthritis, and that this data can be used for CVD risk prediction in these patients.We will be working with two datasets of over 300 patients each – an early inflammatory arthritis dataset and a corresponding DXA BMD dataset of the same patient cohort. The project will be a retrospective study, and all data will be anonymised prior to analysis. We will study the group of associations between BMD and established CVD risk factors such as BMI, smoking and cholesterol. We will also compare different types of arthritis such as rheumatoid arthritis and psoriatic arthritis with respect to their CVD risk and BMD result. We plan to submit the work in form of an abstract to relevant rheumatology conferences and peer-reviewed journals.