Incidence of Rheumatoid Arthritis in the Southern part of Denmark from 1995 to 2001

Jens K Pedersen,Kim Horslev-Petersen,Anders J Svendsen

doi:10.2174/187431290701011809

Abstract

We estimated the incidence of rheumatoid arthritis in the southern part of Denmark from 1995 to 2001. At a rheumatology hospital serving a population of about 200 000 people over the age of 15, medical records were scrutinized. As case definition we used the tree and list format of 1987 American College of Rheumatology criteria for rheumatoid arthritis. The mean annual incidence rate per 100 000 person years was 40 in females, 21 in males, and 31 in females and males combined. The incidence of rheumatoid arthritis in Denmark is in accordance with recent studies from North America, the UK, and Northern European countries. The aetiology of rheumatoid arthritis is unknown but this study indicates that in these populations the exposure to non-genetic host and environmental aetiological factors is similar.

Highlights

Over the last decades the incidence of rheumatoid arthritis (RA) has been studied in different populations of European origin
A total of 440 cases were identified in the register and 25 (6%) had initially been registered with another diagnosis than RA (Table 1)
We estimated the incidence of RA over a seven-year period around the turn of the century

Summary

Introduction

Over the last decades the incidence of rheumatoid arthritis (RA) has been studied in different populations of European origin. Using different sets of classification criteria, incidence rates per 100 000 person-years (PY) have in most studies without restrictions as to the age of the study population ranged from 26 to 58 in females, from 12 to 30 in males, and from 21 to 45 in females and males combined [1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12,13,14,15]. The incidence increases with age up the eighth decade and in the oldest age groups equal rates are seen in females and males [1,2,3,4,5, 11, 12, 14, 15]. In the light of the changing occurrence of RA, current estimates of the incidence are of general interest to doctors, epidemiologists, and health care planners

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Conclusion