s / Osteoarthritis and Cartilage 20 (2012) S54–S296 S154 2005 and April 2009 and were diagnosed by the rheumatologist with primary hand, knee or hip OA. All subjects were followed until 2 November 2011.Mortality was compared between included patients with OA and the general population in the Netherlands, matched for both age and gender. For GARP, the expected numbers of deaths came from age and gender specific mortality data provided in the mortality statistics from 2006 in 5-year age bands and for ‘Zorgpad artrose’ the data came from 2009. Standardized Mortality Ratios (SMR) with 95% confidence intervals (95% CI) were calculated using STATA (version 10.1). Results: The GARP study consisted of 384 participants (82% women) and the mean age at inclusion was 60.1 (range 42-79). The duration of followup was 9.0 (SD 1.2). No excess mortality was observed in OA patients when compared to the general population. 26 patients died, while the expected number of deaths was 48 (SMR 0.54, 95% CI 0.37 0.79). The SMR was 0.47 (0.29 0.76) in women and 0.73 (0.39 1.35) in men. Healthy cohort effect was also tested and not likely present. In our replication cohort we found similar results (11 patients died, SMR 0.45, 95% CI 0.25 0.82). The SMR was also lower in women (0.40, 0.20 0.81) than in men (0.66, 0.21 2.06) Conclusions: In patients consulting health care, OA does not lead to a higher mortality rate in women and a similar trend can be observed in men. These results do not support the hypothesis that metabolic syndrome is an important cause of OA and would influence the mortality of patients consulting primary or secondary health care for their complaints. Whether this is due to selection of patients or reflects a true absence of metabolic syndrome in OA has to be further investigated. 305 THE ASSOCIATION OF STATIN USE AND INCIDENT RADIOGRAPHIC KNEE OSTEOARTHRITIS R.K. Chaganti , I. Tolstykh , N.E. Lane , C.E. McCullough , M.K. Javaid , J.B. Driban , B. Wise , J. Torner , C.E. Lewis , D.T. Felson , M.C. Nevitt . Univ. of California, San Francisco, San Francisco, CA, USA; Univ. of California, Davis, Sacramento, CA, USA; Oxford Univ., Oxford, United Kingdom; 4 Tufts Univ. Med. Ctr., Boston, MA, USA; Univ. of Iowa, Iowa City, IA, USA; Univ. of Alabama, Birmingham, AL, USA; Boston Univ., Boston, MA, USA Purpose: Statin medications are widely used and have been shown to reduce inflammation in cardiovascular disease; animal data suggests a protective role for statins in inflammation associated with cartilage and bone. Based on these findings, we wanted to evaluate the association of statin use with the risk of incident knee radiographic osteoarthritis (ROA). Methods: Subjects were enrolled in MOST, an NIH-funded cohort study of 3026 men and women ages 50-79 years with, or at high risk of knee OA. Subjects had baseline and 30 month follow-up PA and lateral knee x-rays. Tibiofemoral (TF) ROA was defined as the presence of Kellgren/Lawrence (K/L) grade 2. Whole knee (WK) ROA was defined as the presence of either TFROA or patellofemoral (PF) OA, defined as either (1) PF osteophyte grade 2, or 2) as a PF osteophyte grade 1 plus one or more of PF joint space narrowing, sclerosis or cysts . Incident cases were knees without TFROA (or WKROA) at baseline that developed it at 30 months. Statin use Association of Statin Use and Incident TFROA