SMAD3 and rheumatoid arthritis: In a further step, we performed a Cox regression model to account for the variation of risk of the first CV event through time according to allele C of rs17228212 SMAD3 variant: in the subgroup of anti-CCP negative RA patients the presence of C allele conferred a protective effect against CVA after result adjustment for sex, age at the time of RA diagnosis, and traditional CV risk factors (HR [95%CI]=0.36 [0.14–0.94], p=0.038), while C allele carriers who were positive for anti-CCP antibodies did not show any reduction in the risk of CVA (HR [95%CI]=1.08 [0.55–2.10], p=0.82) (Table 3).