Background Patients with knee osteoarthritis (OA), due to age, walking functional impairment and/or a high prevalence of obesity, are at a high risk of metabolic disorders and cardiovascular (CV) comorbidities. However, hand OA (HOA) usually affect a younger population and is not so clearly associated with obesity or other conditions linked to cardiovascular risk.

Objectives To evaluate the frequency of metabolic disorders and CV comorbidity in patients with symptomatic HOA referred to a rheumatologist in a primary care setting.

Methods Consecutive patients aged >50 y referred period to a rheumatology practice in a primary care setting because of HOA during a 12-month period. Diagnostics related to CV comorbidity and/or glycemic or lipid disorders (hypertension, diabetes, ischemic heart disease, heart failure, cerebrovascular disorder, venous insufficiency or dyslipemia) were obtained for each patient from the HC3 (Història Clínica Compartida de Catalunya), a computerized database from the public health service. Patients with soft tissue disorders (e.g. shoulder tendinitis, plantar fasciitis, etc) adjusted for age were used as control group.

Results Eighty-seven patients with HOA and 254 with soft tissue conditions were included in this cross-sectional study. Seventeen patients with HOA were excluded for the analysis because of concomitant knee and/or hip OA, leaving 70 patients with OA only in hands to be analyzed. No differences were found between both groups regarding age or gender. The frequencies of hypertension, hyperglycemia/diabetes and dyslipemia were not significantly different between HOA patients and the control group [Table]. However, obesity was significantly more frequent in the HOA group (13/70 (18.6%) vs. 23/254 (9.1%), p<0.05), as was metabolic syndrome (9/70 (12.9%) vs. 13/254 (5.1%), p<0.05). When analyzing the presence of metabolic syndrome among patients with obesity in both groups, patients with HOA still showed a significantly higher rate as compared with the control group (8/13 (61.5%) vs. 5/23 (21.7%), p<0.05). [

Conclusions These data suggest that obesity and metabolic syndrome, but no other conditions associated with cardiovascular risk such as hypertension, diabetes or dyslipemia, are relatively frequent in patients with HOA. Metabolic syndrome was highly frequent in patients with HOA and obesity compared with obese control patients, suggesting the implication of additional systemic factors in this subpopulation.

Disclosure of Interest None Declared