Prevalence of Amyloid in Long Standing Rheumatoid Arthritis by Abdominal Fat Pad Aspiration

Secondary amyloidosis(reactive) is an important late complication in chronic imflammatory disorder such as rheumatoid arthritis. The present study was undertaken to determine the prevalence of secondary amyloidosis in rheumatology patients with rheumatoid arthritis(RA) and assess associated clinical and laboratory characteristics.Patients & In this cross-sectional study, 220 consecutive patients(167 female/53 male) with a history of minimal 5 years of RA were selected from 2 rheumatology clinics during 2001-2003. Abdominal subcutaneous fat pad aspiration(ASFA) was performed and specimens were stained with congo-red and observed under polarized light microscopy. Clinical and laboratory characteristic were then assessed via t-test, chi-square test & SPSS software. Amyloid was positive in 11 patients(5%) by ASFA and all had 1+ deposit. 7 (64%) patients had constipation and 6(55%) of them had proteinuria. These Iranian patients with RA had a low prevalence of amyloid deposition, about half of them were subclinical. Follow-up studies are needed to investigate whether this subclinical amyloidosis will progress into clinically significant amyloidosis or not.