Citation

Utku U, ÖGÜN MN (2018) Cerebral Hemodynamics in Patients with Rheumatoid Arthritis. Int J Neurol Neurother 5:078. doi.org/10.23937/2378-3001/1410078

Copyright

© 2018 Utku U, et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

ORIGINAL ARTICLE | OPEN ACCESS DOI: 10.23937/2378-3001/1410078

Cerebral Hemodynamics in Patients with Rheumatoid Arthritis

Uygar Utku1 and Muhammed Nur ÖGÜN2*

1Faculty of Medicine, Department of Neurology, İstinye University, Turkey

2Faculty of Medicine, Department of Neurology, Abant Izzet Baysal University, Turkey

Abstract

Objectives

The aim of this study was to assess the cerebral blood flow velocity using transcranial Doppler (TCD) ultrasonography in patients with Rheumatoid Arthritis (RA).

Materials and methods

A total of 22 patients aged 20 to 40-years-old with RA were enrolled in the RA group consecutively. Control group (non-RA group) consisted of 22 age and sex-matched, randomly selected patients without RA who had other diagnosis such as fibromyalgia and did not have risk factors for atherosclerosis (AS). Bilateral middle cerebral artery (MCA) peak-systolic, end-diastolic, and mean blood flow velocities, Pourcelot's resistance index values and Gosling's pulsatility index values were recorded with TCD by a neurosonologist blinded to RA and control groups.

Results

There were 22 people in each group. There were 10 women and 12 men in RA group. Therefore, control group was selected similar. The mean age was 38.6 in the RA group and 37.8 in the control group. Cerebral blood flow velocities of bilateral MCA were significantly higher in RA group than the control group.

Conclusions

Our study highlights the increased cerebral blood flow is indirectly associated with AS regarding persistent inflammation in patients with RA.