Clinical and radiological findings of pulmonary manifestation of rheumatoid arthritis

 

Dheeraj Kumar^1*, Vijay Achari²

 

Abstract              Background: Rheumatoid arthritis is a long-term autoimmune disorder that primarily affects joints. It typically results in warm, swollen, and painful joints. Pain and stiffness often worsen following rest. Most commonly, the wrist and hands are involved, with the same joints typically involved on both sides of the body. The disease may also affect other parts of the body. Methodology: The patients were examined thoroughly emphasis was given on clinical, radiological, PFT and HRCT studies along plural fluid analysis in patients having pleural effusion. The prospective study included 50 patients with RA met the American collage of rheumatology classification criteria for RA. Study conducted in the department of General Medicine in Patna Medical College during the period of March 2018 to January 2019. Results: Several study results indicate that pulmonary complications are more common in men, our study findings indicated an overall predominance (1.38:1) of men, which was mainly due to a predominance of male number in our study. The most common symptom we observed among the study subjects is chough with sputum, followed by cough, wheezing with dyspnoea, sputum, wheez and dyspnoea. Pleural diffusion was observed in 8 (16%) patients. Conclusion: The pulmonary changes may be accompanied as a systemic component of the RA. If these changes are well recognised, they can help in the diagnosis of the RA.