Early rheumatoid arthritis in Finland

T. Sokka

Vanderbilt University Medical Center, Nashville, Tennessee, USA and Jyväskylä Central Hospital, Jyväskylä, Finland.

ABSTRACT
The first Finnish early rheumatoid arthritis (RA) cohort was established in 1973-75 at the Rheumatism Foundation Hospital in Heinola, a hospital for rheumatic diseases only. Since then early RA cohorts for the purposes of longitudinal observation have been established at the Jyväskylä Central Hospital and Helsinki University Hospital. Furthermore, 199 patients with early RA were enrolled in a multicenter randomized controlled study in 1993-95. The primary observations from these cohorts are summarized in this essay.

Key words
Early rheumatoid arthritis.

Please address correspondence to: Tuulikki Sokka, MD, PhD, Assistant Professor of Medicine, Vanderbilt University School of Medicine, 203 Oxford House, Box 5, Nashville, Tennessee 37232-4500, USA.

Clin Exp Rheumatol 2003; 21: (Suppl. 31): S133-S137.
© Copyright Clinical and Experimental Rheumatology 2003.