background: exposure to heavy metals in development of many diseases has been investigated previously, specially created by oxidative stress. the etiology of rheumatoid arthritis (ra) is still not fully understood but oxidative stress created by heavy metals may have role in development of ra. the aim of present study was to compare serum level of heavy metals in ra and healthy control individu...

ra (rheumatoid arthritis) is a chronic multisystem disease with a variety of systemic manifestations. one of these manifestations, is hearing disorder, so study of the relation between ra and hearing disorders is seem important. this was a case-control study which has done from december 2004 to august 2006. this study compared 50 patients with ra, with age, sex and job-matched as control. audio...

background: erythrocyte sedimentation rate (esr) is one of the predictors of improvement in handling rheumatoid arthritis. this study was designed to define and compare the time of achieving normal esr and also the percentage for the normalization of this marker at several points of time in two different combination therapies.methods: fifty-two rheumatoid arthritis patients randomly received me...

conclusions our study demonstrated that almost all ghq and msscq parameters were lower in ra patients, which indicates lower quality sexual life in ra patients. we recommend further consideration for the treatment and care of these patients. patients and methods in this case-control study, two groups of females (87 ra patients and 89 controls) were randomly selected from the rheumatology clinic...

Osteoporosis is a common clinical problem, especially in patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA). A reduction in bone mineral density (BMD) of the axial and appendicular skeleton ranging from 7% to 15% has been reported in RA in studies employing a variety of densitometric techniques. Reports consistent with a beneficial effect of tumour necrosis factor blockade on BMD have begun to emerge in r...

Glucocorticosteroids are used frequently in the management of patients with rheumatoid arthritis. Data supporting their efficacy and safety are still meagre. Glucocorticosteroids may be used systemically with different routes of administration (oral, i.m. and i.v.), in different doses and for different periods of time. The effectiveness of glucocorticosteroids in reducing inflammation in the sh...

A 35 month old girl had suffered from painful joint contractures of the whole body since a few months after birth, and she gradually developed numerous periarticular and subcutaneous nodules, hoarseness, swallowing difficulty with recurrent respiratory infections, nystagmus, and mental and developmental retardation. She was misdiagnosed as having juvenile rheumatoid arthritis at several univers...

background: bone mineral density (bmd) changes during the course of rheumatoid arthritis (ra). the present study was designed to investigate the status of bmd in patients with ra treated with anti-rheumatic drugs. methods: bmd at the femoral neck (fn-bmd) and lumbar spine (ls-bmd) were measured by dual energy x-ray absorptiometry (dxa) method using norland densitometer. disease activity (da) wa...

background: periodontitis and rheumatoid arthritis (ra) share a number of clinical and pathologic features, one of which is the presence of the tumor necrosis factor alpha (tnf-α)-induced bone resorption that is involved in the pathogenesis of both. objectives: to investigate the effect of tnf-α blockade on periodontal conditions in patients with active ra. method: the periodontal statuses of 3...

sjogren syndrome (ss) can occur alone, primary sjogren syndrome, or in association with other rheumatic diseases, secondary sjogren syndrome (sss), such as rheumatoid arthritis (ra). the occurrence of sjogren syndrome with ra makes it course worse and increases high morbidity and mortality of ra. in this exploratory study we aim to determine the prevalence of sss (diagnosed based on the revised...