Rheumatoid arthritis is an inflammatory chronic disease with an autoimmune pathogenesis. To determine the role of Helicobacter pylori as a trigger agent, twenty five patients with rheumatoid arthritis of ages (15-47) years have been investigated and compared with twenty healthy individuals. All the studied groups were carried out to measure the rheumatoid arthritis (RA) IgM, anti-CCP antibody IgG and IgA by ELISA test and by measured anti-IgG antibody level of H. pylori by using ELISA and IFAT techniques. The present study showed significant differences (P< 0.05) of anti-H. Pylori in sera of RA patients than control group, this lead to suggest that H. pylori had a role in pathogenesis of RA.

Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is a chronic inflammatory disease associated with decreased antioxidant state .This study aim to investigate the status of oxidant/antioxidant in a sample of  Iraqi patients with RA and the role of peroxynitrite and its natural scavenger uric acid in them .This case-controlled study was conducted at Baghdad teaching hospital /Baghdad from December 2010-May 2011 . Twenty-five patients with mean age 39 years and 25 apparently healthy subject as controls with mean age 29 years were included in the study .Investigations include estimation of serum levels of nitric oxide (NO)  ,peroxynitrite (PN) , malondialdehyde (MDA)  , and uric acid (UA) .Serum PN levels were significantly elevated in RA patients a

Objectives: To study the prevalence of rs1799964 (-1031 T/C) and rs361525 (- 238 G/A) SNPs and their effect on the disease activity, severity, and cytokines production in newly diagnosed Iraqi rheumatoid arthritis patients. Patients and Methods: sixty-three patients were diagnosed by a specialist physician while attending the rheumatology unit and twenty control participated. The inflammatory markers were measured and PCR amplification and sequencing were performed to demonstrate TNF-α SNPs. Results: Regarding (-1031 C/T) SNP, the TT genotype and allele C were significantly present in the controls, and the CT genotype was distributed significantly in the patients. The TT genotype was mostly distributed in the mild-moder

Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is a common inflammatory disease that associated with increased morbidity and mortality due to accelerated atherosclerosis. Rosuvastatin is a unique hydroxy methyl glutaryl Co A (HMGCoA) reductase inhibitor that has anti inflammatory effects.

The aim of this study was to evaluate the effect of rosuvastatin as adjuvant therapy to methotrexate (MTX) on lipid profile and its possible cardioprotective effect in RA patients. A double blinded placebo controlled clinical trial with 8 weeks follow up periods at which 40 patients with active RA using MTX were randomized into 2 groups to receive either rosuvastatin 10mg or placebo as adjuvant therapy to MTX. In addition to twenty healthy subjects as control group.

Cytokines play a prominent role in etiology and pathogenesis of rheumatoid arthritis (RA), and one of these cytokines is interleukin-1β (IL-1β). The association between IL1B gene single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP: rs16944) and rheumatoid arthritis (RA) in a sample of Iraqi patients was investigated. Fifty-one RA patients (21 males and 30 females) were enrolled and their age range was 20 - 63 years (44.9 ± 1.5 years). In addition to patients, 45 apparently healthy control subjects were also enrolled in the study. They matched patients for ethnicity (Iraqis), gender (14 males and 31 females) and age (41.3 ± 1.3 years). Analysis of Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium (HWE) in RA patients and controls revealed that the IL1B ge

     Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is an inflamed chronic autoimmune disease in which genetics and environment are the most common causative factors. Peptidyl arginine deiminase type IV (PADI4) is an enzyme responsible for the posttranslational conversion of arginine residues into citrulline. Real-time polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) is a specific technique was used to determine gene polymorphism. One hundred twenty three patients molecularly confirmed with RA and sixty healthy control subjects were recruited. By applying the logistic regression analysis, some alleles and genotypes were associated with susceptibility to RA. Under the allelic model, C allele frequency was significantly increased in RA patients compared

It was aimed to understand the interleukin-4 (IL-4) role in etio-pathogenesis of rheumatoid arthritis (RA). Two approaches were adopted. In the first one, a quantitative expression of IL4 gene was assessed by reverse transcription-quantitative polymerase chain reaction (RT-qPCR), and such findings were correlated with some demographic, clinical and laboratory parameters, which included gender, duration of disease, disease activity score (DAS-28), rheumatoid factors (RFs), C-reactive protein (CRP) and anti-cyclic citrullinated peptide (ACCP) antibodies. In the second approach, a single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) of IL4 gene (rs2243250) was inspected by DNA sequencing using specific primers. Fifty-one Iraqi RA patients (22 males and 29 fem

 Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) was a chronic inflammatory autoimmune disease for long-term that primarily affects small joints and leads to chronic inflammation in synovial. The aimed of the study to identify the relationships among some serological markers (antibodies to citrullinated protein/peptide antigens (ACPAs), anti-mutated citrullinated vimentin (anti-MCV), anti-carbamylated protein (Anti-Carp), anti- heterogeneous nuclear ribonucleoproteins (anti-hnRNP) and Glucose-6-phosphate isomerase (GPI)) and early diagnosis of RA. The study involved (60) Patients of newly diagnosis with RA that divided in to two subgroups (30 RF positive and 30 RF negative) groups and 30 subjects as healthy control group. The serological data from serum

Background: Methotrexate is one of the mainstays for treating rheumatoid arthritis (RA) with a wide range of adverse drug reactions, however, it’s the relationship between adverse drug reactions and genetic polymorphism remains to be highlighted, and there is a lack of studies concerning Arabic Iraqi population regarding this aspect.

Objective: Evaluate the association between genetic mutations in the MTHFR gene in SNPs (rs1801133G&gt;A and rs1801131T&gt;G) on the adverse drug reaction for RA Iraqi patients.

Methods: An observational study, that involved 95 Iraqi RA patients with established RA. Patien