The association of cigarette smoking with disease outcome in patients with early inflammatory polyarthritis

Abstract

Despite smokers being more likely to develop nodules and to be RF positive, current smokers did not have higher levels of radiologic damage, and had fewer swollen joints. We hypothesize that this could be due to either the effect of cigarette smoking on the inflammatory response or other factors (e.g., reduced physical activity in smokers) which may limit joint inflammation and damage.