INTRODUCTION Little is known about rheumatoid arthritis in the black, particularly in Congolese, populations. Our objective was to describe the phenotype and genotype of rheumatoid arthritis (RA) in Congolese. METHODS All consecutive rheumatoid arthritis (RA) patients attending Kinshasa University Hospital in a three-year time period were included. Demographics, clinical features and tobacco ...

Antibodies to citrullinated proteins/peptides (ACPAs) are the second serological marker to have recently been included in the 2010 ACR/EULAR Rheumatoid Arthritis (RA) Classification Criteria, which are focused on early diagnosis and therapy. This review discusses their history and some clinical aspects of ACPAs, focusing on the diagnostic utility of anti-cyclic citrullinated peptide (anti-CCP) ...

OBJECTIVE To investigate whether antikeratin antibodies (AKA) could be useful in the differential diagnosis of patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) compared to patients with hepatitis C virus (HCV) associated polyarthritis, who are seropositive for rheumatoid factor (RF). METHODS AKA were assayed in 3 different groups of patients; all were RF seropositive: Group 1: 25 patients with HCV ass...

Rheumatoid arthritis is the most common systematic autoimmune disease and its etiology is believed to have both strong genetic and environmental components. We demonstrate the utility of including genetic and clinical phenotypes as covariates within a linkage analysis framework to search for rheumatoid arthritis susceptibility loci. The raw genotypes of 1302 affected relative pairs were combine...

Immune complexes (ICs) can induce production of cytokines by peripheral blood mononuclear cells via Fc receptors. Rheumatoid factor (RF) develop in response to ICs in many clinical and experimental settings. We investigated whether and how polyethylene glycol (PEG) precipitated ICs from rheumatoid arthritis (RA) sera and synovial fluid (SF) can influence cytokine production by peripheral blood ...

Introduction. To compare the diagnostic values of laboratory variables, to present evaluations of the diagnostic test for asymmetric dimethyl arginine (ADMA), rheumatoid factor (RF), C-reactive protein (CRP), and DAS28 index, and to define the effect of untreated rheumatoid arthritis on endothelial function. In order to determine whether ADMA changes depending on the disease evolution, ADMA was...

OBJECTIVES The aim of this study was to investigate the relationship between serum infliximab (IFX) levels and changes of RF and ACPA levels in patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA). METHODS Enzyme-linked immunosorbent assays (ELISA) [Promonitor® IFX R1 (version 2) (Progenika Biopharma, Spain)] were used to measure drug levels and antidrug-antibodies (ADAb) in IFX RA-treated patients (n=19)...

BACKGROUND Rheumatoid Factors (RF) are antibodies directed against the Fc portion of IgG and are involved in clearance of immune complexes. While RF can develop in a wide range of conditions, higher RF levels indicate a greater risk for a severe disease course in Rheumatoid Arthritis (RA) patients including cardiovascular complications and premature death. We investigated whether RF also consti...

The role of immunoglobulins in the pathogenesis of rheumatoid arthritis (RA) has been studied by Franklin and Kunkel (1957), Hamerman (1966), and Hollander, McCarty, Astorga, and CastroMurillo (1965). The inconstancy of the reported presence of the rheumatoid factor (RF), which is considered by Franklin and Kunkel to be a complex composed of altered IgG bound to a molecule of IgM, and also the ...

BACKGROUND The early diagnosis of Rheumatoid arthritis can improve clinical outcomes, in terms of morbidity and mortality. This study evaluates the role of evidence informed diagnostic reasoning in the early diagnosis of Rheumatoid arthritis. METHODS A cross-sectional survey was conducted on 200 respondents inclusive of doctors and medical students, at Shifa college of Medicine, Islamabad fro...