Affiliation:
1. The Third People's Hospital of Chengdu, The Affiliated Hospital of Southwest Jiaotong University, Chongqing Medical University
2. Chengdu First People's Hospital, Affiliated Hospital of Integrated Traditional Chinese and Western Medicine of Chengdu Medical College
Abstract
Abstract
Background:
Extensive observational studies suggested an association between rheumatoid arthritis (RA) and heart failure (HF). Nevertheless, whether there was a solid causal association was still unclear because of confounding factors. Therefore, a bidirectional two-sample Mendelian randomization (MR) study was performed to investigate whether genetically predicted RA is related to the risk of HF and vice versa.
Methods:
RA data were obtained from large-scale genome-wide association studies (GWASs), including 5,539 cases and 20,169 controls. Data on HF were obtained from the FINNGEN biobank, including 13,087 cases and 195,091 controls of European ancestry. The inverse-variance weighted method, weighted median and MR-Egger were used for estimating and verifying the possible causal effect of RA and HF. The Funnel plots, leaveone-out analyses and MR-Egger regression were used in the sensitivity analysis.
Results:
Genetic susceptibilities of RA increased the risk of HF (OR=1.02; 95% CI 1.00-1.04, p =0.03), while HF did not increase the risk of RA.
Conclusion:
Genetic liability to RA is associated with a higher risk of HF. On the other direction, HF is not related to RA. Our research supports the clinical need for screening HF in patients with RA, which has milestone significance in exploring whether to provide appropriate HF treatment for RA patients.
Publisher
Research Square Platform LLC