Carotid intima-media thickness and endothelial function: useful surrogate markers for establishing cardiovascular risk in patients with inflammatory rheumatic disease
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* Corresponding author: Miguel A Gonzalez-Gay miguelaggay@hotmail.com
1 MAG-G and JL are senior authors
2 Division of Rheumatology, Hospital Xeral Calde, c) Dr Ochoa s/n, 27004, Lugo, Spain
3 Division of Cardiology, Hospital Xeral Calde, c) Dr Ochoa s/n, 27004, Lugo, Spain
4 Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Cientificas, Avenida del Conocimiento s/n, 18100, Armilla, Granada, Spain
5 Division of Epidemiology and Computational Biology, School of Medicine, University of Cantabria, Avda. Cardenal Herrera Oria s/n, 39011, Santander, Spain
6 CIBER Epidemiología y Salud Pública (CIBERESP), Spain
Arthritis Research & Therapy 2008, 10:403 doi:10.1186/ar2409
Published: 16 May 2008First paragraph (this article has no abstract)
We read with interest the editorial by Veldhuijzen van Zanten and Kitas [1], in which they consider whether carotid artery intima-media thickness (IMT) – a surrogate marker of atherosclerosis – might be a good predictor of future cardiovascular events in patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA). They state that it remains an open question, because no long-term studies have documented such an association in patients with RA. We are pleased to provide the readers of this journal with an answer to this question.