Demographic and Clinical Characteristics of Patients with Rheumatoid Arthritis

Abstract

Background and Objective: Rheumatoid arthritis is the most common chronic systemic autoimmune inflammatory polyarthritis that usually affects smaller joints as well as the larger joints which leads to initiate the cartilage damage, bone erosions, joint destruction, deformity and disability in course of time. The study was carried out with the objective to correlate the demographic and clinical characteristics of RA subjects. Materials and Methods: A total of 210 RA patients (165 females and 45 males), aged ≥ 20 years, were included in the study from Malda Medical College & Hospital, Malda, West Bengal. RA was diagnosed according to the ACR-EULAR/2010 criteria. The demographic and clinical characteristic of RA patients were collected using structured questionnaire. The qualitative determination of rheumatoid factor (RF) in sera of RA patients was done using latex agglutination method (Angstrom Biotech Pvt. Ltd., Vadodara, India) and erythrocyte sedimentation rate (ESR) was measured using Westergren method. Results: No significant association was found between RF seropositivity and socio-demographic and/or clinical characteristics including gender, age groups, morning stiffness and joint swelling. However, an association between RF seropositivity and ESR in female patients aged ≥ 20 was found to be significant (p= 0.035^*). Conclusion: The finding of the study indicates that there is a gender bias with respect to the correlation between rheumatoid factor (RF) and erythrocyte sedimentation rate (ESR) in RA patients. Female RA patients with RF seropositivity tend to have elevated level of ESR, an acute phase reactant.