People with rheumatoid arthritis that undergo joint surgery are at double the risk of dying have double shortly afterwards, a new study finds.

Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is an autoimmune disease that attacks tissues near the joints and other body parts. Out of every 100,000 people, 41 are diagnosed with RA every year. About 1.3 million Americans have RA.

Australian researchers used a hospital database to analyze the results of 240,571 patients underwent 308,589 joint surgeries from 2000 to 2007. Of these, 3,654 were performed on 2,219 patients with RA.  The researchers looked at heart attack and all-cause death, as well as cardiovascular death for all reasons at six weeks and one year.

The highest risk of death was from heart attack in the first six weeks, but that the risk remained elevated, as it did for all of the cardiovascular events, during the one-year period, the study finds.

The elevated death rate occurred not only for patients undergoing hip replacement but also for more minor surgeries such as knee arthroscopy and shoulder surgery.

The researchers hope their findings will be used by patients to guide them in decision-making about surgery, they said of their study, which appears in Arthritis Research & Therapy.