Geriatric status characteristics in patients with rheumatoid arthritis aged over 65 years: A subanalysis of the Russian EUCALYPT study

The aim – to study the features of geriatric status in patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) aged ≥65 years.

Materials and methods. The EUCALYPT study enrolled 4308 people (30% men) aged 65 to 107 years (median 78 years) residing in 11 regions of the Russian Federation. A comprehensive geriatric assessment, consisting of a survey using a specially developed questionnaire and an objective examination, was performed for all participants. The presence of RA in the subjects was determined based on records in their medical charts. Information on the presence or absence of RA was available for 4295 (99.7%) patients.

Results. The prevalence of RA among all patients was 6.9%, including 7.6% among individuals aged 65–74 years, 7.5% among those aged 75–84 years, and 5.2% among those aged ≥85 years (p=0.026). The prevalence of RA in women was 1.4 times higher than in men (7.6% vs. 5.3%; p=0.005). Univariate regression analysis showed that with each additional year of age the odds of having RA decreased by 2% (odds ratio ( R) – 0.98; 95% confidence interval (95% CI): 0.97–0.997; p=0.019), whereas women had 49% higher odds of having RA (OR=1.49; 95% CI: 1.12–1.97; p=0.005). Compared with patients without RA, the geriatric status of patients with RA was somewhat worse, as they had a higher prevalence of a number of geriatric syndromes (GS): chronic pain (97.6% vs. 86.4%; p<0.001), frailty (70% vs. 62.2%; p=0.007), depression (56.8% vs. 47.5%; p=0.002), falls during the preceding year (46.5% vs. 29.1%; p<0.001), malnutrition (11.1% vs. 5.5%; p<0.001), and pressure ulcers (4% vs. 2.1%; p=0.032), but a lower prevalence of cognitive impairment (52.1% vs. 61.5%; p=0.004). Multivariate regression analysis adjusted for age and sex demonstrated that age (OR=0.98 per each year; 95% CI: 0.96–0.99; p=0.007) and 5 geriatric syndromes were independently associated with the presence of RA: frailty (OR=1.47; 95% CI: 1.09–1.99; p=0.013), malnutrition (OR=1.90; 95% CI: 1.18–3.07; p=0.008), cognitive impairment (OR=0.62; 95% CI: 0.46–0.83; p=0.001), chronic pain (OR=5.56; 95% CI: 2.27–13.62; p<0.001), and falls during the preceding year (OR=2.03; 95% CI: 1.55–2.67; p<0.001).

Conclusion. The EUCALYPT study provided, for the first time, domestic (Russian) data on the prevalence of RA in individuals aged ≥65 years and examined the associations between RA and GS.

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