Rheumatoid Arthritis

Disease State Hub

Q&As

Treating Rheumatoid Arthritis: What Are Clinicians Overlooking?

01/22/2017

While treat-to-target is now canonical, many clinicians are overlooking and dismissing certain assessments in managing rheumatoid arthritis.

01/22/2017

Rheumatoid Arthritis Snapshot

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Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is a chronic, inflammatory, autoimmune disease. It mainly affects the joints in a person's hands, wrists, and knees.

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Rheumatologists, Primary Care, Orthopaedists, Physical and Occupational Therapists

For RA that affects the lungs and heart: Pulmonologists and Cardiologists

Typically presents as tender, warm, swollen joints, joint stiffness (usually worse in the mornings/after inactivity), fatigue, fever and loss of appetite.

About 40% of patients experience signs and symptoms that aren't related to their joints. Areas affected are: skin, eyes, lungs, heart, kidneys, salivary glands, nerve tissue, bone marrow, blood vessels

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Blood Tests: Elevated erythrocyte sedimentation rate or C-reactive protein level can indicate if someone has RA.

Blood Tests: Other blood tests look for anti-cyclic citrullinated peptide (anti-CCP) antibodies and rheumatoid factor. A complete blood count test is used to diagnose anemia, which is common in patients with RA

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Imaging Tests: Imaging tests, such as X-rays, may track the progression of RA over time.

Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) may help diagnose RA in the early stages of the disease.

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As of 2021, 1.5 million people in the United States have RA.
Women are 3 times as likely as men to develop RA.
Women are typically diagnosed with RA aged between 30 to 60 years.

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