Rheumatoid arthritis, lupus, and other inflammatory rheumatic diseases are associated with a high rate of death from heart disease. One explanation is a greater susceptibility to atherosclerosis. Although atherosclerosis is linked to inflammation in healthy individuals as well, the mechanism of inflammation and the reason for accelerated atherosclerosis in patients with inflammatory rheumatic disease remain unclear. Does atherosclerosis result from systemic inflammation, a hallmark of these rheumatic diseases, or from local inflammation of vessels?
To shed light on the link between chronic inflammation and atherosclerosis, a team of researchers in Norway and the United States, affiliated with the Cleveland Clinic Foundation and Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston, focused on the aortas of recent recipients of coronary artery bypass graft (CABG) surgery, comparing biopsy specimens from patients with inflammatory rheumatic disease to those from patients without it. Their study, presented in the June 2007 issue of Arthritis & Rheumatism, affirms inflammatory rheumatic disease and smoking as independent predictors of vessel wall inflammation. The vascular inflammation might be a factor that promotes atherosclerosis and the formation of aneurysms.