You are here

  • Home
  • Archive
  • Volume 82, Issue 3
  • Occupational inhalable agents constitute major risk factors for rheumatoid arthritis, particularly in the context of genetic predisposition and smoking

Responses

Article menu
Rheumatoid arthritis
Occupational inhalable agents constitute major risk factors for rheumatoid arthritis, particularly in the context of genetic predisposition and smoking
Compose a Response to This Article
Compose Response

More information about text formats

Plain text

  • No HTML tags allowed.
  • Web page addresses and e-mail addresses turn into links automatically.
  • Lines and paragraphs break automatically.
Author Information
First or given name, e.g. 'Peter'.
Your last, or family, name, e.g. 'MacMoody'.
Your email address, e.g. higgs-boson@gmail.com
Your role and/or occupation, e.g. 'Orthopedic Surgeon'.
Your organization or institution (if applicable), e.g. 'Royal Free Hospital'.
Statement of Competing Interests

PLEASE NOTE:

  • A rapid response is a moderated but not peer reviewed online response to a published article in a BMJ journal; it will not receive a DOI and will not be indexed unless it is also republished as a Letter, Correspondence or as other content. Find out more about rapid responses.
  • We intend to post all responses which are approved by the Editor, within 14 days (BMJ Journals) or 24 hours (The BMJ), however timeframes cannot be guaranteed. Responses must comply with our requirements and should contribute substantially to the topic, but it is at our absolute discretion whether we publish a response, and we reserve the right to edit or remove responses before and after publication and also republish some or all in other BMJ publications, including third party local editions in other countries and languages
  • Our requirements are stated in our rapid response terms and conditions and must be read. These include ensuring that: i) you do not include any illustrative content including tables and graphs, ii) you do not include any information that includes specifics about any patients,iii) you do not include any original data, unless it has already been published in a peer reviewed journal and you have included a reference, iv) your response is lawful, not defamatory, original and accurate, v) you declare any competing interests, vi) you understand that your name and other personal details set out in our rapid response terms and conditions will be published with any responses we publish and vii) you understand that once a response is published, we may continue to publish your response and/or edit or remove it in the future.
  • By submitting this rapid response you are agreeing to our terms and conditions for rapid responses and understand that your personal data will be processed in accordance with those terms and our privacy notice.
CAPTCHA
This question is for testing whether or not you are a human visitor and to prevent automated spam submissions.

Vertical Tabs

Other responses

Jump to comment:

  • Published on: 21 December 2022
    Correspondence on “Occupational inhalable agents constitute major risk factors for rheumatoid arthritis, particularly in the context of genetic predisposition and smoking” by Tang et al.
    • Gabriela Schmajuk, Associate Professor University of California – San Francisco; San Francisco VA
    • Other Contributors:
      • David Hutchinson, Dr
      • Laura Trupin, Dr
      • Edward Yelin, Dr
      • Daniel Murphy, Dr
      • Paul Blanc, Dr

    We read with interest the publication by Tang and coauthors on occupational risks for rheumatoid arthritis (RA) (1), which builds on previous valuable observations from the Swedish EIRA cohort.

    Their findings can be further strengthened when contextualized with other studies of occupation and RA from the U.S. and the U.K., in which higher prevalences of inhalational risk exposure are found. Results from U.S. population-based surveys, with a combined sample of nearly 5000 ever-employed males, showed that work in silica-exposing jobs exclusive of mining was associated with greater than three-fold odds of RA in both of the two regions studied (Appalachia and the Southwest Mountain States).(2,3) Because such non-mining silica exposure was common (28% and 18%, respectively), the population attributable fraction (PAF) within these groups was considerable: 27% (95% CI 23%, 30%) and 17% (95% CI 13%, 20%), respectively.

    Results from a U.K. study show additional effects of inhalational exposures (with silica being the most common) on RA seropositivity, antibody titer, and age of onset. (4) A study of 726 men with RA from Cornwall demonstrated that inhalational exposures were strongly associated with having seropositive RA, with higher RF antibody titers and earlier age of onset compared to unexposed patients. In that study, 75% of subjects had inhalational exposures lasting more than one year, and the estimated PAF for being strongly RF positive RA was 24.2%.

    ...Show More
    Conflict of Interest:
    None declared.