Early diagnosis of rheumatoid arthritis
Yakupova S.P.

Kazan’ State Medical University

Early diagnosis of rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is of crucial importance for the choice of basic treatment which prevents irreversible damage. There are objective difficulties for RA diagnosis at the debut (i.e., the lack of typical abnormalities in laboratory tests or joint damage etc.). In 2010, ACR and EULAR developed novel criteria for early diagnosis of RA to identify the patients with probable RA debut. The paper describes authors’ clinical case of RA debut; the disease was diagnosed according to the novel criteria. In addition, other clinical variants of RA debut, laboratory diagnostic aspects, and prognostic value of high anti-citrullinated protein antibody (ACPA) titers in early RA are discussed. Nimesulide is a highly effective and tolerable anti-inflammatory agent prescribed for RA and other rheumatic disorders. The paper addresses clinical manifestations of various RA debuts besides typical symmetric polyarthritis of the small joints of the hand with gradual pain and stiffness increase.

Key words: early rheumatoid arthritis, diagnostic criteria, variants of debut, nimesulide.

For citation: Yakupova S.P. Early diagnosis of rheumatoid arthritis // RMJ. 2016. № 22. P. 1499–1502.