Education＆ScienceEducational Article

Comment by Mark Lavercombe: Interstitial Lung Disease (ILD) is estimated to occur in 10-20% of patients with Rheumatoid Arthritis (RA), with male sex, older age and smoking history among various risk factors previously identified. In this paper, the authors perform a Mendelian Randomization analysis of data from a large genome-wide association study with 14361 cases of RA and 42923 controls to identify genetic variants associated with RA and their effect as instrumental variables for the development of ILD. Fifty-two single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) were analysed using statistical methods to assess causality, heterogeneity, and pleiotropy. Their results suggest a causal relationship with an odds ratio of 1.155 (95% confidence interval: 1.083–1.232, p = 0.0000104).