Investigators have found that the risk of aortic stenosis and disease-related death may be higher in patients with rheumatoid arthritis, according to a new study published by Johnson et al in JAMA Internal Medicine. In the new study, the investigators used the Veterans Health Administration and Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services to examine data from 73,070 patients with rheumatoid arthritis and 639,268 controls. They defined composite aortic stenosis as a combination of inpatient and outpatient diagnoses, surgical or transcatheter aortic valve replacement, and aortic stenosis–related death. The investigators found that the patients with rheumatoid arthritis had an aortic stenosis incidence rate of 3.97 per 1,000 person-years (95% confidence interval [CI] = 3.81–4.13) and controls had an aortic stenosis incidence rate of 2.45 per 1,000 person-years (95% CI = 2.41–2.49). Additionally, patients with rheumatoid arthritis had an increased risk of composite aortic stenosis (adjusted hazard ratio [HR] = 1.48, 95% CI = 1.41–1.55) and were more likely to require aortic valve replacement (adjusted HR = 1.34, 95% CI = 1.22–1.48) or die from aortic stenosis (adjusted HR = 1.26, 95% CI = 1.04–1.54) compared with controls. The investigators concluded that further studies may be needed to validate whether aortic stenosis could be a complication of rheumatoid arthritis.