Page 77 - Fertility in Women with Rheumatoid Arthritis Vruchtbaarheid van vrouwen met reumatoïde artritis

Statistics
Differences between groups were calculated using Student’s t-test or Mann Whitney-U test for continuous variables and Fisher’s exact test for categorical variables. Univariate analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) was performed to adjust for age differences between groups. Correlations between AMH and CRP and DAS28 were assessed by the partial correlation coef cient, correcting for age. Differences between T0 and T6 within subjects were studied using the paired samples t-test or the Wilcoxon signed ranks test. The proportional change in AMH levels between T0 and T6 was calculated as AMH(T6)/AMH(T0). Linear regression was performed to study the effect of different variables on proportional AMH change.
Reference curves for serum AMH levels in controls as function of age were calculated
from a linear regression model using a natural cubic spline tted on log-transformed
AMH values of the control group.8
Values are represented as mean ± standard deviation or median (interquartile range).
Two-sided p-values <0.05 were considered signi cant. Statistical package used is 5 SPSS Statistics 18.0.0 (IBM Corp., Armonk, N.Y., USA).
RESULTS
Patients
Between July 2004 and February 2011 174 women aged 18 to 42 years were enrolled in the REACH. Of the enrolled women, 95 (55%) ful lled the 2010 ACR/EULAR RA classi cation criteria. Three of them were diagnosed psoriatic arthritis, but still ful lled the classi cation criteria and were included in the analysis. One patient had a history of unilateral ovariectomy because of severe endometriosis and was excluded from the study. The rst (T0) and second (T6) visits were included in the analysis. Serum samples from T0 were available for 72 women whereas 53 of them had also serum stored at T6. The median time between the two visits was 182 (175-189) days. The patients with available serum at T0 did not differ from patients without available serum (n=22) concerning age, BMI, symptom duration, CRP, or proportion of patients positive for RF, anti-CCP or erosions. At T0, included patients had a signi cantly lower mean DAS28 of 4.52±1.29 compared to 5.19±1.05 in patients with no serum available (p=0.032) (table 1). Information on obstetric history was available in 50% of patients. Twenty- ve percent had ever been pregnant. No additional data on fertility problems were available.
AMH in RA – early RA
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