Risk of autoimmune rheumatic diseases in patients with palindromic rheumatism: A nationwide, population-based, cohort study

OBJECTIVE: To estimate the relative risk of autoimmune rheumatic diseases, including rheumatoid arthritis (RA), systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE), systemic sclerosis (SSc), Sjogren’s syndrome (SS), dermatomyositis (DM) and polymyositis (PM), among patients with palindromic rheumatism (PR) compared with non-PR individuals. METHODS: The study utilized 2003–2013 claims data from the Taiwanese National Health Insurance Research Database. We identified 4,421 cases of PR from 2007 to 2012 and randomly chose 44,210 non-PR individuals who matched (1:10) for age, sex and the year of index date without prior history of RA, SLE, SSc, SS, DM, or PM. After adjusting for age, sex, and the Charlson comorbidity index, we calculated the hazard ratios (HRs) with 95% confidence intervals (CIs) using the Cox proportional hazard model to quantify the risk of RA, SLE, SS, DM and PM in PR patients compared with that in matched non-PR individuals. RESULTS: Among the 4,421 patients with PR, 569 (12.87%) developed RA, 269 (6.08%) developed SS, 113 (2.56%) developed SLE, 5 (0.11%) developed SSc, 8 (0.18%) developed PM, and 1 (0.02%) developed DM. After adjusting for potential confounders, the patients with PR had an increased risk of RA (HR, 118.76; 95% CI, 89.81–157.04), SS (HR, 59.57; 95% CI, 43.87–80.88), SLE (HR, 51.56; 95% CI, 32.96–80.66) PM (HR, 57.38; 95% CI, 6.90–476.83), and SSc (HR, 13.42; 95% CI, 3.79–47.55) but not of DM (HR, 3.44; 95% CI, 0.34–34.59). CONCLUSION: Patients with PR had an increased risk of developing RA, SS, SLE, PM, and SSc.