JIANG Chunyun,JIANG Quan,WANG Jian,et al.Correlation Between Traditional Chinese Medicine Syndromes and Rheumatoid Arthritis with Atherosclerosis:A Multicenter Cross-Sectional Study[J].Journal of Traditional Chinese Medicine,2026,67(11):1192-1199.
JIANG Chunyun,JIANG Quan,WANG Jian,et al.Correlation Between Traditional Chinese Medicine Syndromes and Rheumatoid Arthritis with Atherosclerosis:A Multicenter Cross-Sectional Study[J].Journal of Traditional Chinese Medicine,2026,67(11):1192-1199.DOI: 10.13288/j.11-2166/r.2026.11.011.
Correlation Between Traditional Chinese Medicine Syndromes and Rheumatoid Arthritis with Atherosclerosis:A Multicenter Cross-Sectional Study
To investigate the risk factors for atherosclerosis (AS) in rheumatoid arthritis (RA) patients and its correlation with traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) syndromes.
Methods
2
A cross-sectional study was conducted, enrolling 16
082 RA patients from 122 medical centers nationwide. Patient demographics, disease assessment data including disease activity (DAS-28), tender joint count (TJC), swollen joint count (SJC), patient's global assessment (PGA), evaluator's global assessment (EGA), and visual analogue scale (VAS), major clinical symptoms including insomnia, loss of appetite, irritability, and fatigue, and laboratory indicators including blood routine
, inflammatory markers, liver and kidney function, metabolic indices, and coagulation markers were collected through questionnaire. Based on the four examinations in TCM, patients were classified into eight TCM syndromes, which were wind-damp obstruction, cold-damp obstruction, damp-heat obstruction, phlegm-stasis obstruction, blood stasis obstructing the collaterals,
qi
-blood deficiency, liver-kidney insufficiency, and
qi
-
yin
deficiency. Patients who experienced AS events were included in the event group (564 cases), while those without AS events were included in the non-event group (15
518 cases). Intergroup difference tests were used to screen potential risk factors, and binary logistic regression analysis was employed to assess the correlation between TCM syndromes and rheumatoid arthritis with atherosclerosis (RA-AS).
Results
2
Compared to the non-event group, patients in the event group had longer disease duration, higher body weight, and older age (
P
<0.05), and showed significantly higher DAS28, TJC, SJC, PGA, EGA, VAS, ESR, low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C), triglycerides (TG), total cholesterol (TC), and D-dimer levels, and lower high-density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL-C), with more severe symptoms of insomnia, irritability, and fatigue (
P
<0.05). Damp-heat obstruction syndrome was the most prevalent in both groups, with a higher proportion in the event group (393/564, 69.68%) than in the non-event group (4578/15
518, 29.50%) showing significant difference (
P
<0.05). Logistic regression analysis showed that patients with damp-heat obstruction syndrome had a 5.326-fold higher risk of developing RA-AS compared to those without this syndrome (
OR
=5.326, 95%
CI
4.517 to 7.089,
P
<0.001).
Conclusion
2
The occurrence of RA-AS is associated with TCM syndromes, disease activity, inflammatory markers and lipid metabolic indices, and damp-heat obstruction syndrome is an independent risk factor for RA-AS.
关键词
Keywords
references
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Related Institution
Henan University of Chinese Medicine
Luoyang Orthopedic-Traumatological Hospital of Henan Province (Henan Provincial Orthopedic Hospital)
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