Introduction:

There are differences between patients with early and established rheumatoid arthritis (RA) that can condition quality of life and prognosis of the disease.

Material and methods:

Descriptive, cross-sectional study in a cohort of RA patients with regular follow-up visits in two third-level hospitals. A questionnaire with epidemiological, clinical, laboratory and radiographic variables was completed, in addition to physical examination.

Patients were divided into 3 groups: 0 to 12 months, 13 to 60 months and more than 60 months of disease duration.

Results:

330 patients were included, with mean disease duration of 108.19 ± 91.17 months.

Patients with less than 12 months of disease duration have a BMI of less than 25 more frequently (50% vs. 24.9%, p 0.037), they also have a higher average SJC (3.20 ± 3.6 vs. 1.64 ± 2.7, p 0.034), TJC (3.53 ± 4.13 vs. 1.7 ± 2.77, p 0.015) and pain VAS (28.93 ± 30.14

vs. 15.09 ± 19.79, p 0.011). Meanwhile, patients with more than 60 months disease duration are older (53.08 ± 12 vs. 48.23 ± 14, p 0.002), have a higher incidence of erosions (39% vs. 21%, p 0.004) and osteoporosis (23.5% vs. 12.9%, p 0.023) and a lower average TJC (1.49 ± 2.5 vs. 2.28 ± 3.3, p 0.018).

Conclusion:

Patients with shorter disease duration have higher average activity indexes.

Patients with longer disease duration have a higher frequency of erosive disease and osteoporosis but lower average tender joint counts.

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