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Relationship between cigarette smoking and radiographic knee osteoarthritis in Chinese population: a cross-sectional study

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Abstract

The purpose of this paper was to estimate the cross-sectional association between cigarette smoking and radiographic knee Osteoarthritis (OA) in Chinese population. A total of 3,789 subjects (1,796 females and 1,993 males) participated in this study. A subject was diagnosed with radiographic knee OA if Kellgren–Lawrence (K–L) grade ≥2 in at least one leg. The smoking status was classified into four levels based on the daily smoking habit: (1) 0/day; (2) 1–10/day; (3) 11–20/day; and (4) >20/day. Linear trend and multivariable logistic regression were conducted for statistical analysis. The prevalence of radiographic knee OA was 28.4 % among the subjects of this study. An inverse association was observed between cigarette smoking and radiographic knee OA in the linear trend test. Such association remained valid after adjusting the factors of age, gender, body mass index, betel quilt chewing status, physical activity, alcohol drinking status, mean total energy intake and educational level in the multivariable logistic regression. This study suggested a negative association between cigarette smoking and radiographic knee OA in the Chinese population. The findings of this study need to be confirmed by further prospective research.

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Acknowledgments

This work was supported by Hunan Provincial Innovation Foundation for Postgraduate (CX2014A005), the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities of Central South University, the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 81201420, 81272034, 81472130), the Provincial Science Foundation of Hunan (No. 14JJ3032), the Scientific Research Project of the Development and Reform Commission of Hunan Province ([2013]1199), the Scientific Research Project of Science and Technology Office of Hunan Province (2013SK2018) and the Doctoral Scientific Fund Project of the Ministry of Education of China (20120162110036).

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These authors declared there was no conflicts of interests.

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    Authors and Affiliations

    1. Department of Orthopaedics, Xiangya Hospital, Central South University, #87 Xiangya Road, Changsha, 410008, Hunan Province, China

      Yi Zhang, Chao Zeng, Hui Li, Tuo Yang, Zhen-han Deng, Ye Yang, Xiang Ding, Dong-xing Xie, Yi-lun Wang & Guang-hua Lei

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    Correspondence to Guang-hua Lei.

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    Yi Zhang and Chao Zeng have contributed equally to this article.

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    Zhang, Y., Zeng, C., Li, H. et al. Relationship between cigarette smoking and radiographic knee osteoarthritis in Chinese population: a cross-sectional study. Rheumatol Int 35, 1211–1217 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00296-014-3202-0

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