Rheumatoid arthritis: what it is, symptoms, and what it involves

Rheumatoid arthritis refers to a chronic systemic inflammatory disease that affects large and small joints. When the disease occurs, the joints become painful, swollen and tend to deform over time. It is a disease that particularly affects women between the ages of 40 and 50 and can also involve the lungs, eyes, skin or vessels. There are also two particular and rare variants, Felty's disease and Caplan's syndrome. (Source: humanitas.it)

Although familial cases may occur, rheumatoid arthritis is much more often a sporadic disease. However, the causes can be varied and it is believed that an environmental factor can trick the immune system or modify certain antigens.

Among the two rare variants of rheumatoid arthritis are Felty's disease and Caplan's syndrome. Felty's disease causes enlargement of the spleen, reduction of neutrophil granulocytes on the blood count and fever. Kaplan's syndrome, on the other hand, involves pulmonary pneumoconiosis.

Symptoms of rheumatoid arthritis mainly focus on joint stiffness, especially in the morning and which can last for several hours.

In addition to symptoms affecting the joints in particular, rheumatoid arthritis can cause vasculitis, pulmonary fibrosis, serositis, nodulosis of the skin and internal organs.