Sustained smoking cessation within 4 years of rheumatoid arthritis (RA) diagnosis reduced mortality risk, with a similar effect observed among non-RA comparators, a recent study found. Smoking >5 pack-years after RA diagnosis significantly increased mortality beyond the risk of non-RA comparators. Researchers identified an incident RA cohort in the Nurses' Health Study (NHS, 1976-2012). Behavioral data were collected through biennial questionnaires and they created a comparison cohort, matching RA cases to women without RA by age and calendar year at the index date of RA diagnosis. They found:

• Among 121,701 women in the NHS, 938 were identified with incident RA matched to 8,951 non-RA comparators.
• Among current smokers, 40.0% with RA permanently quit smoking in the early RA period compared to 36.1% of comparators.
• There were 313 (33.4%) deaths in the RA cohort and 2,042 (22.8%) among comparators.
• Compared to continued smoking, sustained cessation was associated with similarly decreased mortality in both the RA and comparison cohorts.
• Women with RA had higher mortality for >5 post-RA pack-years than comparators with >5 post-index pack-years.