Abstract
There are four areas of laboratory medicine related to diagnosis of rheumatoid arthritis. These are serological tests for diagnosis of infection, tests for autoantibodies, analysis of serum proteins, and lymphocyte function tests including surface markers. In these areas, except for diagnosis of infection, remarkable development has been achieved in the past ten years. Enumerating roughly, I like to point out the importance of quantitative tests of rheumatoid fac tor, precise examinations for antinuclear antibodies, recent methods for electrophoresis of serum protein, and monoclonal antibodies for lymphocyte surface markers. We can make a diagnosis of rheumatoid arthritis more accurately and reliably by using these laboratory tests. In addition, we can use effective tools to approach the pathogenesis of rheumatoid arthritis through management of RA patients. Here I describe an outline of these recent laboratory tests which are useful for diagnosis of rheumatoid arthritis.
