Elsevier

Joint Bone Spine

Volume 83, Issue 4, July 2016, Pages 457-458
Joint Bone Spine

Letter to the Editor
The prevalence of rheumatoid arthritis in Split-Dalmatia County in southern Croatia is 0.24%

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jbspin.2015.05.004Get rights and content

Introduction

Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is a chronic systemic inflammatory disease, which affects women three times more often than men [1]. It is present in approximately 0.5–1% of the worldwide population, with considerable variations in geographic distribution among different countries and even within the same country [2]. A systematic review suggests that RA is more common in northern than in southern countries, such as southern Europe [3].

The aim of this study is to evaluate the prevalence of RA in Split-Dalmatia County in Croatia, and to investigate whether the occurrence of RA is different in certain regions within the County.

Section snippets

Methods

University Hospital Split Ethics Committee approved this study. This cross-sectional epidemiological study was performed from June 2013 to August 2014 at the University Hospital Center of Split. The study comprised the outpatient and hospitalization medical records, data obtained from the Public Health Institute of Split-Dalmatia County, and records from general practitioners. All patients were interviewed and their data were incorporated into study.

The diagnosis was made by a rheumatologist,

Results

A total of 869 patients (14.5% men) diagnosed with RA living in Split-Dalmatia County was identified. The prevalence of RA in Split-Dalmatia County was 0.24%, or 239 RA cases per 100,000 people. It was higher among women (0.39%) than men (0.07%) resulting in women to men ratio 5.5:1. The increase of prevalence started at age 40–49 and peaked at age 70–79 before dropping in (Table 1).

When comparing different regions and Split-Dalmatia County in total, the prevalence of RA was highest, although

Discussion

This is the first study investigating the prevalence of RA in Croatia and was conducted to evaluate the prevalence of the RA in Split-Dalmatia County in Croatia and to compare the prevalence between various geographic parts of the County. As shown, our study revealed that the RA prevalence in Split-Dalmatia County is 0.24%.

It is already known that prevalence of rheumatoid arthritis differs geographically. The reported prevalence rates for the southern European countries vary from 0.31% to 0.38%

Disclosure of interest

The authors declare that they have no conflicts of interest concerning this article.

Acknowledgements

We are grateful to the colleagues and patients for their friendly cooperation and participation in the study.

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