Comparison of Smoking Status between Primary Vasculitis Patients and Healthy Subjects and its Relationship with Clinical Symptoms and Disease Activity in Patients with Primary Vasculitis

Abstract

Vasculitis is a common problem of patients who referred to Rheumatology clinics and is a problem of health care system. Considering limited data about the relationship between smoking and primary systemic vasculitis (PSV), present study aims to investigate smoking habit in PSV patients compared to healthy subjects as well as to examine the effect of smoking on clinical characteristics and disease activity in PSV patients. Methods & Materials: In a descriptive-analytical study, 80 PSV Patients who referred to Rheumatology Clinic of Tabriz University of Medical Sciences as case group, and 214 healthy individuals as control group; were included the study. Disease activity based on BVAS and clinical symptoms in case group, and demographic information and smoking habits in both groups of study were evaluated. Propensity score matching analyses based on demographic characteristics (including age, gender, educational status and marital status) for reducing the heterogeneity between studied groups and calculating the actual effect of smoking in PSV was performed and multivariate logistic regression analyses was used. Results: No significant differences were observed in clinical manifestations of patients between ever and never smokers. PSM resulted in 62 patients with PSV, and 124 matched healthy persons with similar baseline characteristics. By multivariate logistic regression and after adjustment for age, sex, marital status and educational status, ever smoking was not significantly associated with an increased risk of PSV compared with never smoking.