Rosuvastatin in Rheumatoid Arthritis (RORA)

Inclusion criteria

• Patients will be selected from a high risk population of hospital clinic attendees, defined as RA greater than 5 years' disease duration, and all will be RA latex seropositive or IgM RF ELISA >14iu/ml. The subjects will be of either sex and >40 years of age.
• Patients should have both tender and swollen joint counts >4 each and either a CRP >10mg/l, ESR >25mm/h or PV >1.78.
• Patients on cyclosporine or other medications known to be contraindicated with this form of drug will not be enrolled.

Exclusion criteria

• The patient's hospital and general practice records will be scrutinised for evidence of symptomatic vascular disease.
• Any patient not free from vascular disease symptoms will be excluded.
• In addition to evidence of symptomatic vascular disease (either previous or current), the exclusion criteria consist also of those already taking lipid-lowering therapy or those with contraindications to these therapies.
• Also excluded will be subjects with a total cholesterol level of >7.5mmol/L as it might be argued that such patients merit primary prevention on the basis of dyslipidemia alone.