Introduction:

Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is a chronic, autoimmune, systemic inflammatory disease. Early diagnosis, the implementation of targeted, strict treatment goals and the development of new therapies, have improved the prognosis of these patients.

Objective:

To provide detailed information on the demographic, clinical, and therapeutic characteristics of RA patients in the country.

Materials and Methods:

Descriptive, cross-sectional study of a cohort of RA patients from three tertiary centers. Clinical-epidemiological variables, disease activity, treatment, presence of radiological erosions, and degree of disability were analyzed. Qualitative variables were expressed as frequencies and percentages, and quantitative variables as means with standard deviation.

Results:

The study included 426 patients with a diagnosis of RA, 84.5% female, with an average age of 56.8 ± 14.09 years, and a disease duration of 12.7±19.6 years. A total of 53.3% had a basic school education. 25.5% had extra-articular manifestations. 71.4% had positive anti-CCP and 69.2% had positive Rheumatoid Factor. 68.2% received methotrexate, and 39% were in disease remission by DAS 28. More than 60% had at least one comoridity, with high blood pressure and obesity being the most frequent.

Conclusion:

We present the preliminary phase of a multicenter cohort of patients with RA that reveals the reality of Paraguayan patients. In this cohort of patients with already established RA, there is a predominance of women. The clinical characteristics showed a predominance of poor prognostic factors. The most frequent form of onset was polyarticular, the vast majority were seropositive and had high titers. One third of the patients presented extra-articular manifestations, the most frequent being dry eye. More than 60% had at least one comorbidity, the most frequent being hypertension and obesity.

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