Hargreaves (1958), in a study of a population in Cornwall, England, noticed that a group of women with rheumatoid arthritis had fewer children than a control group without this disease. Independently, at this Unit, we have noticed that, of the large number of married women attending with rheumatoid arthritis, the majority had few children or none at all. Accordingly a controlled study was under...

Biologics have revolutionised the treatment of RA due to their efficacy, speed of onset and tolerability. Increasing evidence suggests that early intervention is the key to combating RA. The future challenge is to find the best time to introduce biologics into the treatment paradigm in the hope of inducing disease remission--something unthinkable even a decade ago.

In a previous issue of Arthritis Research and Therapy, Ursum and colleagues report the relative stabilities of anticitrullinated protein/peptide antibodies (ACPAs) and IgM rheumatoid factors during the course of rheumatoid arthritis and their differential correlation with markers of the acute-phase response. These findings add to a growing body of evidence highlighting the distinct nature of th...

Treatment of rheumatoid arthritis (RA) has dramatically changed over the past decade, and much progress has been made in improving the prognosis of RA patients as a result of elaboration of novel treatment strategies and the development of biologic agents. Nevertheless, up to 50% of patients are either not controlled sufficiently or do not respond at all to current treatments, including biologi...

Rheumatoid disease is common amongst surgical patients and it is vitally important that modifiable risk factors are addressed preoperatively. The aim of this review article is to look at the common risk factors associated with rheumatoid patients receiving surgery and offer recommendations on what steps should be taken preoperatively to minimize these. The currently literature was reviewed and ...

A quantitative immunoturbidimetric assay for rheumatoid factors (RF) is described, based on the immunoprecipitation between aggregated human IgG and rheumatoid factors in serum. The resulting turbidity is measured photometrically at 340 nm. The method is standardized against the WHO international reference preparation and the results are expressed in international units per milliliter (int. uni...