Cardiovascular risk factors in patients with spondyloarthritis from Northern European and Mediterranean countries: An ancillary study of the ASAS-COMOSPA project

Abstract Objectives The objectives of this study were: (1) to compare the prevalence of cardiovascular disease and cardiovascular risk factors among different phenotypes of spondyloarthritis (SpA); (2) to assess the differences in cardiovascular disease and cardiovascular risk factors between two geographical areas, i.e. Northern Europe vs. Mediterranean region; (3) to identify potential predictive factors for high Framingham Risk Score regarding disease features in SpA and geographical area. Methods Ancillary analysis of the international, multicentric, observational, cross-sectional ASAS-COMOSPA study. Cardiovascular disease and cardiovascular risk factors were compared depending on SpA phenotype and geographical regions. Potential factors associated with higher cardiovascular risk (i.e. Framingham Risk Score) were determined by a multiple logistic regression. Results The most frequent cardiovascular risk factor and cardiovascular disease were smoking (31.2%) and ischemic heart disease (3.2%), respectively. Regarding SpA phenotype, axial SpA patients showed significantly lower prevalence ( P Conclusions Our results suggest that SpA phenotype and geographical area are associated with the prevalence of cardiovascular risk factors and the cardiovascular risk itself, observed in patients in the ASAS-COMOSPA cohort.