COPD Tied to Increased Risk for Death in Patients With Arthritis

THURSDAY, March 20, 2025 (HealthDay News) — Adults with arthritis and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) have a higher risk for mortality than individuals without COPD, according to a study recently published in Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Diseases: Journal of the COPD Foundation.

Yingying Zhang, from the Affiliated Wuxi Fifth Hospital of Jiangnan University in China, and colleagues used data from 11,298 participants in the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (1999 to 2018) to evaluate the correlation between COPD and mortality among participants with arthritis.

The researchers found that during 8.8 years of follow-up, COPD was significantly associated with both all-cause and cardiovascular disease (CVD) mortality among participants with arthritis (hazard ratio [HR] for all-cause mortality with arthritis and COPD, 1.41; 95 percent confidence interval [CI], 1.25 to 1.60; and HR for CVD mortality, 1.29; 95 percent CI, 1.08 to 1.53). Higher rates of both all-cause and CVD mortality were observed among participants with COPD with Kaplan-Meier survival curves. Additionally, with COPD, there was an increased risk for both chronic lower respiratory disease (CLRD) mortality (HR, 5.46; 95 percent CI, 3.48 to 8.56) and non-CLRD mortality (HR, 1.24; 95 percent CI, 1.07 to 1.44).

“These results not only offer valuable insights into the intricate relationship between COPD and arthritis but also imply that clinicians should adopt a more holistic approach to managing these patients, prioritizing the identification and management of comorbidities that may exacerbate clinical outcomes,” the authors write.

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