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medications (NSAIDs, corticosteroids, conventional-synthetic and biologic-DMARDs) were also collected.
The following comorbidities and risk factors for comorbidities were collected. AHT was defined as a history of AHT or use of anti-hypertensive therapy or a blood pressure at the study visit >140/90. TB was defined as a history or current active TB. Cancer was defined as a history of neoplasia in the colon, skin (melanoma and basocellular-carcinoma), lymphoma (Hodgkin’s and Non-Hodgkin’s disease), breast and cervix (for women) and prostate (for men). All data were collected by a study investigator by interview and were completed by reviewing medical records. The information was collected and registered in a centralized electronic-case report form.
Data from the general population
Total and gender- and age-group specific prevalence data for AHT of general population were ob- tained from the Cardiovascular Risk Factor Multiple Evaluation in Latin America (CARMELA-study). This is a population-based observational study (n=11,550) 13, 14 assessing the prevalence of cardio- vascular risk-factors in seven Latin American cities including Buenos Aires, Bogotá and México City. The analyses of data of the general population for AHT was confined to Colombia and Mexico. We found a huge inter-country variability with regard to the AHT prevalence in the region, especially the data reported in Argentina. Whereas the AHT prevalence in the general-population in Colombia and Mexico was comparable (13 and 11% respectively), in Argentina the reported prevalence was 29%. Because of this discrepancy, which can be explained by genetic, ethnic and demographic dif- ferences between the countries in the region, the analyses for AHT was limited only to these two countries with respect to comparison with general-population.
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