A variety of factors have been thought to be in the etiolgy of rheumatoid arthritis (RA). Several studies looking for genetics, psychological problems, immune mechanism and possibly infectious etilogy have been conducted. In this report, we review these factors of RA by the questionnaire for 538 RA patients receiving treatment in our hospital.
In the questionnaire, 433 (83.4%) answered that they had some factors at the onset of RA, main of which being overwork, moisture, food, infection etc. 158 (30.5%) had intrafamilial accummlation, 21 of 403 (5.2%) had ATLA antibody and 124 of 174 (72.1%) had HLA-DR4 antigen. In age of onset, patients with intrafamilial accumulation and patients with infectious etiology tend to show the younger onset and patients with ATLA antibody tend to show the older onset. In its clinical course, patients without any etiological factors tend to have better prognosis than the others.
