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Published at www.nejm.org September 5, 2007 (10.1056/NEJMe078174)

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Rheumatoid arthritis is a chronic inflammatory disorder in which the articular joints are gradually destroyed. Occasionally there is systemic involvement, which can include vasculitis in various organs and pulmonary fibrosis. The disease has multifactorial causes to which genetic and environmental factors are thought to contribute. The presence of autoantibodies to cyclic citrullinated peptide (CCP) is specific to rheumatoid arthritis; although the mechanistic significance of these autoantibodies is obscure, their detection contributes both to the differential diagnosis and to a prediction of the severity of joint destruction. Rheumatoid arthritis causes substantial morbidity and mortality and is sometimes accompanied by severe infection . . . [Full Text of this Article]

Source Information

From the Department of Allergy and Rheumatology, Graduate School of Medicine (K.Y.), and the Laboratory for Functional Genomics, Institute of Medical Sciences (R.Y.), University of Tokyo, Tokyo; the Laboratory for Rheumatic Diseases, Institute of Physical and Chemical Research, Yokohama City (K.Y.); and the Center for Genomic Medicine, Graduate School of Medicine, Kyoto University, Kyoto (R.Y.) — all in Japan.

This article (10.1056/NEJMe078174) was published at www.nejm.org on September 5, 2007. It will appear in the September 20 issue of the Journal.

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