Study Identifies Cardiovascular Comorbidities Associated With Dermatomyositis

DM is associated with cardiovascular disease (CVD), but US-based data studies on CVD comorbidities in patients with DM are lacking.
In a cross-sectional analysis of participants in the All of Us research program aged 18 years and older with at least 1 year of electronic health record (EHR) data, researchers identified DM cases and controls with nearest neighbor propensity score matching by age, sex, race/ethnicity, EHR duration, and healthcare visit quantity.
They used the Pearson's chi-squared test, Fisher's exact test, unpaired t-test, or Mann-Whitney U test to compare clinical characteristics and traditional CV comorbidities.
Multivariable conditional logistic regression was used with backward elimination of comorbidities with P > 0.1 or evidence of collinearity.

Among 235,161 All of Us participants, researchers identified 206 DM cases and 824 matched controls with largely similar demographic characteristics, including smoking status, obesity, and indicators of socioeconomic status.
Participants with DM were more likely to have a history of atrial fibrillation (10.1% vs 16.0%, respectively), chronic kidney disease (15.2% vs 29.1%), congestive heart failure (9.6% vs 18.0%), coronary artery disease (CAD) (18.2% vs 34.0%), hypertension (52.5% vs 60.7%), myocardial infarction (7.4% vs 15.0), type 2 diabetes (27.3% vs 47.6%), and valvular heart disease (8.7% vs 16.5%) than matched controls.
In a multivariable analysis that adjusted for potential confounders, three comorbidities remained associated with DM: CAD (odds ratio [OR], 2.0; P < .001), type 2 diabetes (OR, 2.2; P < 0.001), and chronic kidney disease (OR, 1.7; P =0.015).

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