Tuyển tập các báo cáo nghiên cứu về y học được đăng trên tạp chí y học General Psychiatry cung cấp cho các bạn kiến thức về ngành y đề tài: Carotid intima-media thickness and endothelial function: useful surrogate markers for establishing cardiovascular risk in patients . | Available online http content 10 3 404 Letter Carotid intima-media thickness and endothelial function useful surrogate markers for establishing cardiovascular risk in patients with inflammatory rheumatic disease authors response Jet JCS Veldhuijzen van Zanten1 2 and George D Kitas1 2 1 School of Sport and Exercise Sciences University of Birmingham Birmingham B15 2TT UK 2 Department of Rheumatology Dudley Group of Hospitals NHS Trust Pensnett Road Dudley DY1 2HQ UK Corresponding author George D Kitas Published 16 May 2008 Arthritis Research Therapy 2008 10 404 doi ar2410 This article is online at http content 10 3 404 2008 BioMed Central Ltd See related editorial by Veldhuijzen van Zanten and Kitas http content 10 1 102 and related letter by Gonzalez-Gay et al. http content 10 3 403 We thank Gonzalez-Juanatey and colleagues 1 for their response to our editorial 2 . They refer to their interesting recent work 3 reporting that carotid intima-media thickness IMT is associated with future cardiovascular events in patients with rheumatoid arthritis RA . Although this is potentially important because this was a longitudinal observational study conducted over a 5-year period of follow up there are some shortcomings that may be of significance. The cohort 47 patients and number of events 8 were small allowing for statistical error. Patients who developed cardiovascular events not only had significantly higher carotid IMT but were also significantly older than those who did not greater age is associated with both carotid IMT and cardiovascular event risk 4 . This together with other possible confounders might have had a major impact on the results. The degree of systemic inflammation in patients when carotid IMT was assessed and during follow up was not presented. One of those patients who developed a cardiovascular event appears to have been an extreme .
