EDITORIAL

Cigarette smoking

Cigarette smoking and the risk of systemic lupus erythematosus and rheumatoid arthritis

D S Majka¹, V M Holers²

¹ Division of Rheumatology, Northwestern University, Feinberg School of Medicine, Chicago, IL, USA
² Division of Rheumatology, University of Colorado at Denver and Health Sciences Center, Denver, CO, USA

Correspondence to:
Correspondence to:
Dr D S Majka
Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, Division of Rheumatology, McGaw Pavilion, 240 East Huron St, #2300, Chicago, IL 60611, USA; d-majka@northwestern.edu

Accepted 19 January 2006

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Smoking may affect the disease course in SLE and patients should be counselled to stop

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Keywords: dsDNA; autoantibodies; smoking; systemic lupus erythematosus; rheumatoid arthritis

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

In this issue of the Annals, Freemer et al report an association between smoking and dsDNA autoantibody production in systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE).¹ The authors note that exposure to tobacco smoke has previously been associated with several autoimmune diseases, including rheumatoid arthritis (RA) and SLE. In RA, cigarette smoking has been associated with rheumatoid factor (RF) positive but not RF negative disease when these two groups of subjects were evaluated separately.^2–4 Likewise, smoking has been associated with anti-cyclic citrullinated antibody (anti-CCP) positive but not anti-CCP negative RA.⁵ In affected subjects, exposure to tobacco has also been associated with several measures of disease severity such as the presence of radiographic erosions, nodules, pulmonary disease, RF, and anti-CCP antibodies.^5–8 A cumulative dose of exposure has been associated with a higher incidence and prevalence of RA as well as RF and anti-CCP positivity^5,7–9; in studies evaluating intensity and duration . . . [Full text of this article]

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