Cigarette smoking and risk of primary systemic vasculitis: a propensity score matching analysis.

Introduction: Considering limited data about the association between smoking and primary systemic vasculitides (PSV), present study aims to investigate smoking habit in PSV patients compared to healthy subjects as well as to examine the effect of smoking on clinical characteristics, disease activity and disease outcome in PSV patients.

Methodology: We included 126 patients diagnosed with PSV and 210 age- and sex-matched healthy controls. Demographic and clinical information and smoking history of patients and healthy controls were obtained by direct interview and questionnaire.