TY - JOUR T1 - Influence of changes in cholesterol levels and disease activity on the 10 years cardiovascular risk estimated with different algorithms in rheumatoid arthritis patients JF - Annals of the Rheumatic Diseases JO - Ann Rheum Dis SP - e104 LP - e104 DO - 10.1136/annrheumdis-2019-215715 VL - 79 IS - 9 AU - Marco Fornaro AU - Fabio Cacciapaglia AU - Vincenzo Venerito AU - Giuseppe Lopalco AU - Florenzo Iannone Y1 - 2020/09/01 UR - http://ard.bmj.com/content/79/9/e104.abstract N2 - European League Against Rheumatism (EULAR) recommendations for cardiovascular (CV) risk management in patients with Rheumatoid Arthritis (RA) suggest to ‘measure cholesterol and other lipid fractions when disease activity is stable or in remission’.1 This point ensues from the assumption that inflammation and high disease activity can lower lipid levels and mislead the CV risk score, despite the risk of CV disease is reported to be increased in patients with active RA.2 As algorithms used in clinical practice include total cholesterol (Tot-Chol) and its fractions as variable of interest, we would like to raise the question whether lipid levels and disease activity changes during the first months of biological treatment may have an impact on the ordinary CV risk scores. We analysed RA patients included in the BIOlogic aPUlian REgistry (BIOPURE) (Ethics Review Board of Policlinico of Bari, comitatoetico@policlinico.ba.it, protocol number 5277), who started a first-line biological agent since … ER -