Extract
Clinically evident interstitial lung disease (ILD) occurs in 10% of patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) and is associated with considerable morbidity and mortality [1. RA-associated ILD (RA-ILD) has a poor prognosis with a highly variable and unpredictable clinical course [2]. Although several prognostic factors, including older age, male sex, reduced lung function, and a usual interstitial pneumonia (UIP) pattern or extensive disease on high-resolution computed tomography (HRCT) have been proposed [3], their predictive capacity may be limited by insufficient respiratory effort or interobserver variability. Circulating free mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) is released from dying cells into the circulatory system in response to injury [4] and is associated with the pathogenesis of various conditions, including ILD [5–8].
Abstract
Circulating mitochondrial DNA might be a useful prognostic biomarker in patients with rheumatoid arthritis-associated interstitial lung disease https://bit.ly/3HFqhQM
Acknowledgements
We thank Hak-Su Kim (Veterans Medical Research Institute, Veterans Health Service Medical Center, Seoul, Republic of Korea) for the valuable comments regarding the measurement of plasma mtDNA levels, Seokchan Hong (Department of Rheumatology, University of Ulsan College of Medicine, Asan Medical Center, Seoul, Republic of Korea) for the confirmation of RA-ILD cases, and Jooae Choe (Department of Radiology, Asan Medical Center, University of Ulsan College of Medicine, Seoul, Republic of Korea) for radiological analysis.
Footnotes
Conflict of interest: There are no conflicts of interest.
Support statement: This study was supported by grants from the Basic Science Research Program (NRF-2022R1A2B5B02001602) and the Bio and Medical Technology Development Program (NRF-2022M3A9E4082647) of the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF) funded by the Ministry of Science and ICT, Republic of Korea, by the Korea National Institute of Health research project (2021ER120701), and by the Korea Environment Industry and Technology Institute through Core Technology Development Project for Environmental Diseases Prevention and Management Program funded by the Korea Ministry of Environment (ARQ202201450001), Republic of Korea. Funding information for this article has been deposited with the Crossref Funder Registry.
- Received June 20, 2022.
- Accepted December 10, 2022.
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