Rheumatoid arthritis and pernicious anaemia.

There are reports of an association between megaloblastic anaemia and rheumatoid arthritis. Partridge and Duthie (1963) found megaloblastic anaemia in 1 38 per cent. (35 cases) of 2,544 rheumatoid arthritis patients, as opposed to 0-27 per cent. (15 cases) of 5,515 controls. Of the 35 rheumatoid patients with megaloblastic anaemia, 27 were thought to have Addisonian pernicious anaemia, an incidence of 1*05 per cent. Gough, McCarthy, Read, Mollin, and Waters (1964) found two patients with megaloblastic anaemia among 46 rheumatoid patients selected at random. It is not clear from their paper whether one of these had pernicious anaemia, or whether the anaemia in both was due to folate deficiency. Deller, Urban, Ibbotson, Horwood, Milazzo, and Robson (1966) found one example of macrocytic anaemia due to folate deficiency among 41 rheumatoid patients.