Vascular endothelial growth factor –A (VEGF-A) and its receptor (VEGFR-2) in rheumatoid arthritis patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus

This study aimed to early detection of diabetes type 2 in rheumatoid arthritis (RA) patients.Thus, the present study designed to determine vascular endothelial growth factor-A (VEGF-A), vascular endothelial growth factor receptor -2 (VEGFR- 2), rheumatoid factor (RF),anti-cyclic citrullinated peptide (Anti- CCP), C- reactive protein (CRP),erythrocyte sedimentation rate (ESR), glycated hemoglobin (HbA1c) and total vitamin D (Vit. D) in RA patients with and without diabetes type 2 as a complication of this disease andmake a comparison with control group in order to assess their usage asbiochemical parameters for prompt diagnostic test of RA and find correlation of VEGFR-2 with all studied parameters in all groups. The presents study included 90 subjects aged (35-55) years for all subjects and divided into three groups: (G1) control (30), (G2) RA (30) and (G3) RA with T2DM group (30). The data demonstrated a highly significant increase in RF, Anti-CCP, C-reactive protein, ESR, VEGF-A and VEGFR-2 levels in (G2) and (G3) in comparison to (G1), and a highly significant increase in G3 compared with G2 was found. Results of HbA1c showed a non-significant elevation in (G2) comparing to (G1), while there was a highly significant elevation in (G3) comparing to (G2) and (G1). Levels of Vitamin were found to be significantly lower in (G2) and (G3) when compared with controls (G1). These results revealed that these parameters could be used as biochemical markers for early diagnosis of diabetes in RA patients.